1st. of April 2010 - New HL bans

[Tiggupiru]

Do not unban Balance, do not ban winter orb (wtf?) and LoA & Gifts are just too good. They are one of the most unfun cards you can face when playing control and that makes me unwilling to even consider the possibility of bringing pure control deck to a tournament. "Oh great, you drew that. Guess I lose.". If people are playing more and more aggro, it could be because people think, that control mirrors are too luck dependent to be enjoyable. That is at least what I think, and take in to consideration when deciding what to play in a tournament. Banning Mind Twist made control more relevant, but you better play LoA and blue (or splash it for Gifts) or no dice.

Glad they pondered squee getting the hammer, but i understand that SOFT was too dominant and even more problematic (IMO) it raised a lot of time issues with all the searching and shuffling.

Either Survival was answered (aggro decks just deployed everything they got and hoped for the best), or Survival won. It won either by assembling some stupid combo, or in the long run which is equally unfun to play against. Not to mention time issues.

Banning Squee, would have made the "long run" longer, but that's about it. Genesis, Gigapede and the rest of the crew would have picked up the torch and probably made the deck better as three mana 1/1, is not good or even decent without Survival.

As for entomb + iona example, i sure hope that wasn't decisive for the banning...

Have you ever faced a turn three (or turn two) Iona? It is quite enjoyable. Basically it shuts down 40-90% of your deck, and that means 100% of your answers to the said annoyance. It's not even like you could race it, or attack into it: 7/7 flying creature does fine job holding the ground, until the reanimator can find more creatures or removal for the KO.

Add in the fact, that entomb could find even better answer to current situation, if "meddling mage your deck" is not good enough. Iona is just too good, too often. And when she was not what the doctor had ordered, find something else. Hence, bye Entomb. And good riddance.

I like that council took the action immediately when Entomb became a real problem. Before Iona, this was still probably too good, but not a dreaded menace to society.

[Mythrandir]

Have you ever faced a turn three (or turn two) Iona? It is quite enjoyable. Basically it shuts down 40-90% of your deck, and that means 100% of your answers to the said annoyance. It's not even like you could race it, or attack into it: 7/7 flying creature does fine job holding the ground, until the reanimator can find more creatures or removal for the KO.

Well, it's as enjoyable as a turn 3 BTB.... Also, made up percentages always make me lol 40-90% of my deck meaning 100% of my answers to it?!

I think entomb was a goood ban don't take me wrong, but more problematic than a simple entomb + iona was the variety of fatties (and other stuff) it could tutor at instant speed. Iona shuts down a monocolored deck for sure, for dual color it is really harsh but not game over (very depend on your two colors), for 3 to 5 (plus colorless stuff: maze of ith) it isn't really of a menace, progenitus is way worse or anything fat and "untouchable".

And as for people not bringing control to tournaments, it might have something to do with time limits (not only you might draw instead of winning, but is more tiresome to play long matches...) and also because aggro might be so darn good.

Also i play control and don't play LoA, and i have relatively good score vs control, IMO.

[Nastaboi]

I would say your opinions are rather subjective.

In recent years, Wizards have printed crazy amount of creatures that make yesterday superstars Morphling, Wild Mongrel and Jackal Pup look like medieval footmen confronting modern warfare. Remember when you Oathed up a legend named Spirit of the Night? Creatures have become insanely more effective, and there is no reason this trend is going to change. Cards that help cheat them play are becoming stronger and stronger.

Good luck animating Progenitus, by the way. And Maze of Ith is hardly an answer to Iona as you still have to win the game somehow with majority of your relevant spells disabled.

[Tiggupiru]

Have you ever faced a turn three (or turn two) Iona? It is quite enjoyable. Basically it shuts down 40-90% of your deck, and that means 100% of your answers to the said annoyance. It's not even like you could race it, or attack into it: 7/7 flying creature does fine job holding the ground, until the reanimator can find more creatures or removal for the KO.

Well, it's as enjoyable as a turn 3 BTB.... Also, made up percentages always make me lol 40-90% of my deck meaning 100% of my answers to it?!

Unless you play 5c control or something like that, those percentages are not far off (remember: Iona naming one of your three colors, will shut down nearly all of your multicolor spells as well). As a side note, practically none of the decks I play will lose, or even mind seeing BTB at all.

You really seem like a guy, who plays the same deck(s) over and over again, and makes all the assumptions based on what is good, and what is not against your deck(s). I might be wrong, but if this the case, you have a seriously flawed perspective of the overall field.

I think entomb was a goood ban don't take me wrong, but more problematic than a simple entomb + iona was the variety of fatties (and other stuff) it could tutor at instant speed. Iona shuts down a monocolored deck for sure, for dual color it is really harsh but not game over (very depend on your two colors), for 3 to 5 (plus colorless stuff: maze of ith) it isn't really of a menace, progenitus is way worse or anything fat and "untouchable".

Maze of Ith is not really a removal. You play it and then what? You still can't get rid of the darn thing, and a proper reanimator deck will produce another huge fattie on the table soon enough. Monocolored decks lose, no questions asked. Two colored decks will lose majority of their spells as they will have several multicolor spells (the named color is also the one that has all the straight up removal). Three colored decks have a fighting chance, but most likely Iona takes away the only color that have answers, so they are stuck with their own game plan without at least 40% of their spells most likely more.

Progenitus is not a very good argument, as it's not a reanimator target. Not to mention, I would rather face turn 3 progenitus than Iona when I am playing a one or two colored deck. It basically means the game is over two turns later, rather than immediately.

Also i play control and don't play LoA, and i have relatively good score vs control, IMO.

You don't NEED to play LoA in order to have a good control vs. control win percentage, but if you draw it early on and opponent doesn't answer it immediately, you win.

For example, you have 65-35 win percentage over another control deck, and you are also a little better player than your opponent, so you have a great chance to win the match. You both play LoA, and in the first game, you opponent draws it while you have no answers, resulting of your inevitable loss. Frustrated, you start the second game where no LoA is drawn, and you crush your opponent like your deck always does against him.

In the third game, you keep a hand that has no answers to LoA, but will win if your opponent does not manage to draw it. The outcome of this game is solely dependent on the possibility of your opponent drawing the LoA and all the other factors are irrelevant.

[Mythrandir]

You really seem like a guy, who plays the same deck(s) over and over again, and makes all the assumptions based on what is good, and what is not against your deck(s). I might be wrong, but if this the case, you have a seriously flawed perspective of the overall field.

Yeap, i do play 5cc over and over, and yes, my opinions are subjective, like all opinions and i although i'd like for our format to slow down, i don't come here demanding bans on cards i don't like (BTB,blood moon, PoP winter orb, tangle wire, etc, etc and the list goes on...). I don't like them, but i know they aren't broken enough to be banned. And i don't know if i've already posted it here... but even though LoA is pure control and i love it, i think it breaks the game in half and should be banned. So even though my perspective is flawed, like everyother opinion (some more than others.. true) i don't want a banned list just for me, if i did, i'd quit this and played casual highlander.

Maze of Ith is not really a removal..

Perhaps i didn't express myself correctly, i said maze as an example. In case of Iona, MTG has "6 colors" WRUBG + colorless... what i meant was you could still use your artifacts/lands and other colorless spells. Not that maze would save the day

Progenitus is not a very good argument, as it's not a reanimator target. Not to mention, I would rather face turn 3 progenitus than Iona when I am playing a one or two colored deck. It basically means the game is over two turns later, rather than immediately.

Yeap, i know it's not a reanimation target, but it can be played in natural order or oath. And see what i mean (opinions are subjective) you prefer a turn 3 progenitus, i prefer a turn 2 iona. The fact that really annoys is that i'm perfectly fine with other ppls opinions, but apparently me saying: Reanimate + iona wasn't very broken (or at least wasn't dominating the meta), and even after i expressed in favor of banning of entomb is somewhat offensive to some players

I always post here my opinions which i know are just opinions and i understand that if there were 100 different councils, there would probably be 100 different list (probably not so much.. but you know what i mean) and i'm fine with it as long as the format remains both enjoyable and competitive, which, btw, i think that the council has accomplished it even though i some different opinions from theirs

[Tiggupiru]

What comes to Iona: It, by itself is not a defining card, but since wizards clearly is fond of making big creatures, that have huge impact, cheating a big creature onto play with cheap can be problematic. Iona is problematic to anything that is not made of five colors and entomb could find something like Sundering Titan when opposing lands are forming a rainbow. I think Oath should be on the watch list because of this.

What comes to subjectivity: Like you said, some opinions are more subjective, than others. I like to think myself as an open minded player as I like to play combo and control and I've grown sudden interest and fond of aggro just recently. I try to make decks that are not something you would see everyday (bit of a Johnny side, I know) and testing these kinds of decks leads to me having several cards I am not so fond of. The cards I have most problem, are the cards that are so powerful they render play skill useless. Mind Twist was one, LoA and Gifts IMO belong to this category as well. Some could claim Gifts requires play skill, and they are correct, but the effect is still huge, even when you are not searching optimally. I could be wrong, but many people think alike so that leads me to the conclusion I might be right. At the very least, we do not have unanimosity.

Also the fact that these cards are practically automatic includes in decks that run the corresponding color, is not a positive aspect, but it is something I can live with if they are otherwise not too powerful.

What comes to you offending people with your opinions: If you want to express your opinions, you are entitled to do so. But if I feel that your opinion is somewhat flawed, I might want to state what I think. If there would be just one player expressing their thoughts on banned list, the council might just think he represents the whole community. The more people are expressing their opinions, the more we have variety and the more data council has when they are determining the voice of the community.

If you prefer not to "offend" people with your opinions, do not say a thing. If you want your voice to be heard, prepare to defend it with facts.

[Kassow-Rossing]

Happis
Your Gifts-Loam problem can be, partly, solved with Tormod's Crypt. If you have the wrong build, then you owe to lose to great comboes.

What comes to Iona: It, by itself is not a defining card, but since wizards clearly is fond of making big creatures, that have huge impact, cheating a big creature onto play with cheap can be problematic. Iona is problematic to anything that is not made of five colors and entomb could find something like Sundering Titan when opposing lands are forming a rainbow. I think Oath should be on the watch list because of this.

A intelligent Oath player does not include Sundering Titan in his deck. There are about seven better creatures out there for Oath'ing. Besides: including a card that will sometimes wreck your own mana base to pieces if you accidently happen to hit it with Oath isn't very smart. That said it's not a very powerful creature either. Much better out there! For animator's I can imagine it's quite good because you can always choose not to destroy all your own lands by getting another fattie.

[Tiggupiru]

What comes to Iona: It, by itself is not a defining card, but since wizards clearly is fond of making big creatures, that have huge impact, cheating a big creature onto play with cheap can be problematic. Iona is problematic to anything that is not made of five colors and entomb could find something like Sundering Titan when opposing lands are forming a rainbow. I think Oath should be on the watch list because of this.

A intelligent Oath player does not include Sundering Titan in his deck. There are about seven better creatures out there for Oath'ing. Besides: including a card that will sometimes wreck your own mana base to pieces if you accidently happen to hit it with Oath isn't very smart. That said it's not a very powerful creature either. Much better out there! For animator's I can imagine it's quite good because you can always choose not to destroy all your own lands by getting another fattie.

You misunderstood me. I think Oath should be on the watch list, because wizards keep printing huge fatties and the yesterdays big creatures are constantly being overshadowed by new ones. By this trend, I fully expect a creature so powerful to be printed that will cause Oath to get banned in HL.

I do not think Sundering Titan is a good creature to Oath, I was merely pointing out, that while Iona is very problematic against most of the decks, Entomb can find silver bullet answer, if opposing deck can handle Iona.

I guess I could have made an extra effort to articulate clearer there, but I was writing that too late for that.

[Kristian]

I think Oath should be on the watch list, because wizards keep printing huge fatties and the yesterdays big creatures are constantly being overshadowed by new ones. By this trend, I fully expect a creature so powerful to be printed that will cause Oath to get banned in HL.r that.

I agree with your reasoning on why Oath should be on the watch list, but given the current meta, I don't think it's ban-worthy.

I do have to admit that I think cheating big creatures into play (be it oath, reanimator or otherwise) is cheating in my opinion xD... The way I see it:

Aggro: Blow up the opponent(s) until you win.
Control: Blow up everything else until you win (stabilize).
Combo: Blow up stuff.

Please don't take my post too seriously.

EDIT: Deleted everything in the quote that wasn't relevant to my post.

[imppu]

Happis
Your Gifts-Loam problem can be, partly, solved with Tormod's Crypt. If you have the wrong build, then you owe to lose to great comboes.

So you find the crypt or lose? The Loam player will have the cycling land to save Loam if they see the crypt.

[Jukkis]

No wonder German players play aggro. Your reasoning (I'm exaggerating by generalizing) with all problematic cards is to add answers to those specific problematic cards to your deck. By doing so (if these problematic cards are unbanned) you'd actually make a useless control deck (not to mention aggro or combo) with only answers to specific cards rather than building a strong, themed control deck. So what to do when these types of control decks fail before, say, aggro? Play aggro! That is just plain stupid and makes you blind to the problem itself: overpowered cards. By banning these cards (LoA, Gifts to name two) you'd actually probably make control decks better and more played. They could actually focus on a specific threat (namely aggro if you wish) rather than run cards to some idiotic combos which kill you instantly if left unanswered. I just lost (in a tournament) to Gifts when I was playing aggro because it got four cards that just plain won the game straight up. I've lost count how many times this has happened... But what makes this more retarded than any other time was that my opponent was playing elves. ELVES! Gifts was the only blue card in his deck and it was nuts. This just shows how unbalanced that card is. Now the reason I lost was probably because I didn't play enough GY hate, right? What type of aggro would run enough GY hate to win any decent deck out there which relies on GY strategies and still be able to win, say, any deck that doesn't? You'd be drawing blanks and that's just what aggro doesn't want to do.

Think for a while before you guys post on this forum, it seems not many of you have ever played anything remotely competitive. It's ok if you state your business on a more casual perspective (perhaps it would be wise to mention this at the beginning of your post) but as I've understood these ban lists concern more of the tournament side of HL whereas kitchen table magic is a whole world of it's own with possible house rules; you can play with whatever rules and ban lists you want but I wouldn't go commenting on these kinds of threads with "OMG LOLZ Balance is balanced, it's the same for everyone!!1 UNBAN IT!" based on kitchen table experience. It has pretty much nothing to do with competitive HL.

[Kassow-Rossing]

What comes to Iona: It, by itself is not a defining card, but since wizards clearly is fond of making big creatures, that have huge impact, cheating a big creature onto play with cheap can be problematic. Iona is problematic to anything that is not made of five colors and entomb could find something like Sundering Titan when opposing lands are forming a rainbow. I think Oath should be on the watch list because of this.

A intelligent Oath player does not include Sundering Titan in his deck. There are about seven better creatures out there for Oath'ing. Besides: including a card that will sometimes wreck your own mana base to pieces if you accidently happen to hit it with Oath isn't very smart. That said it's not a very powerful creature either. Much better out there! For animator's I can imagine it's quite good because you can always choose not to destroy all your own lands by getting another fattie.

You misunderstood me. I think Oath should be on the watch list, because wizards keep printing huge fatties and the yesterdays big creatures are constantly being overshadowed by new ones. By this trend, I fully expect a creature so powerful to be printed that will cause Oath to get banned in HL.

I do not think Sundering Titan is a good creature to Oath, I was merely pointing out, that while Iona is very problematic against most of the decks, Entomb can find silver bullet answer, if opposing deck can handle Iona.

I guess I could have made an extra effort to articulate clearer there, but I was writing that too late for that.

I'm posting from a competetive perspective.
Okay point taken. I thought you meant the Oath should be on the watch list because of Sundering. That said I still don't think Oath should be on the watch list untill we see it abused. The fact that creatures are slowly getting stronger and stronger should not force Oath to the watch list. Put it on the watch list when there's a creature too strong out there. Iona is the most dangerous out there for a casual format, but she's not strong enough still.

[Kassow-Rossing]

Happis
Your Gifts-Loam problem can be, partly, solved with Tormod's Crypt. If you have the wrong build, then you owe to lose to great comboes.

So you find the crypt or lose? The Loam player will have the cycling land to save Loam if they see the crypt.

Every deck that cannot beat comboes like Gifts-Loam and also doesn't play any graveyard hate, deserves to lose. In a non-sideboard format your deck should be tuned for any situation you can't handle. If your deck isn't, you can lose to stuff like that. I hope you didn't understand my message to you (The quoted one) as if there's only one possible answer. Tormod's Crypt was just an example. Other cards could be Syncopate, Jund Charm, Relic of Progenitus and so on.

The Loam player will not have the cycling land unless you're really really stupid! And IN THE CASE that he fetches 3x cycling land + Loam (which leads to a cycling land in hand) then you won't lose if your aggro and if you're control, then you should be able to exile the spell or win anyways. If you can't, then you have the wrong build. That said: You should lose sometimes to a great combo like this. Your odds of winning should drop at least 10% when your opponent fetches something this great though!

[Kassow-Rossing]

I just lost (in a tournament) to Gifts when I was playing aggro because it got four cards that just plain won the game straight up. I've lost count how many times this has happened... But what makes this more retarded than any other time was that my opponent was playing elves. ELVES! Gifts was the only blue card in his deck and it was nuts. This just shows how unbalanced that card is. Now the reason I lost was probably because I didn't play enough GY hate, right? What type of aggro would run enough GY hate to win any decent deck out there which relies on GY strategies and still be able to win, say, any deck that doesn't? You'd be drawing blanks and that's just what aggro doesn't want to do.

Think for a while before you guys post on this forum, it seems not many of you have ever played anything remotely competitive.

I've left out some stuff I felt was not relevant for this argument.
If you play an aggro deck and loses to a mono green deck splashed for blue where he could find four card that "just plain won the game straight up" then you owe to lose. How is that even possible? The only thing I can think of is maybe that the game entered turn 18 or something where there's suddenly several things in his library that can win him the game "straight up". If an aggro deck doesn't win untill turn 18 (Example once again), then it doesn't deserve to win.

Please explain your hopeless situation and how Gifts could kill your aggro deck when your opponent was playing mono green with splash for only Gifts?

Edit: Graveyard hate does not kill Gifts. I don't know how you can believe that. Graveyard hate can stop Loam combo. Not Gifts itself.

[Tiggupiru]

I still don't think Oath should be on the watch list untill we see it abused. The fact that creatures are slowly getting stronger and stronger should not force Oath to the watch list. Put it on the watch list when there's a creature too strong out there. Iona is the most dangerous out there for a casual format, but she's not strong enough still.

I see your point and acknowledge that you might be right. But riddle me this, why is Sneak Attack on the watch list? I understand if neither card is in there, but out of the two, why sneak attack?

Besides, people here seem to underestimate Iona. The ability is pretty ridiculous and while I am probably overestimating her (I have a tendency to do that), you are definitely underestimating her.

Every deck that cannot beat comboes like Gifts-Loam and also doesn't play any graveyard hate, deserves to lose. In a non-sideboard format your deck should be tuned for any situation you can't handle. If your deck isn't, you can lose to stuff like that. I hope you didn't understand my message to you (The quoted one) as if there's only one possible answer. Tormod's Crypt was just an example. Other cards could be Syncopate, Jund Charm, Relic of Progenitus and so on.

I agree with you on this one. Buried Alive should be unbanned for this very same reason. Should the graveyard based combo (or any combo) to be too powerful (requiring only a specific answer in the early turns of the game), it should be banned though. Gifts into Loam is not too much of a problem and if Gifts would get banned, Loam probably never is going to be a problem to anybody.