Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

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LokiTheLiar
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Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby LokiTheLiar » 19 Jan 2015, 13:57

http://magic.wizards.com/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19

What do you guys thing about the changes? Are Wizards making a mistake or was it necessary to ban the cards they did?
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Kapol » 19 Jan 2015, 14:13

I'm just surprised that there was a card so powerful it was banned or restricted in every non-rotating format within three months or so of it's printing. A common, no less. It makes me honestly curious how much Wizards tests cards for modern/legacy/vintage compared to standard and maybe EDH or limited. Or maybe this was just another kind of JTMS scenario where it snuck in at the last moment. I just find it interesting.

Also, while I don't play modern, I was kind of hoping to start playing it with a pod list. So that makes me a bit sad honestly.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby LokiTheLiar » 19 Jan 2015, 14:29

I don't know why, but I thought that maybe they won't ban Cruise and Dig, or at least don't ban Dig. Most of the decks that played those cards were already proven archetypes and the additional card advantage just made them a bit better, but I guess I was wrong. I agree that it's a shame they banned pod. It sure was really powerful but it was a very interesting deck, both to pilot and play against.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Asthanius » 19 Jan 2015, 14:33

MaRo has said before that Wizards doesn't playtest sets for eternal formats (i.e. non-Standard), as that would require much more time and money than they have available. Additionally, they still want to make fun cards if they're fair in Standard.

As for Pod, I'm honestly glad it was banned. Do you remember how refreshing it was to see Melira Pod and Archangel Spike Pod change up the deck? Neither do I, because it wasn't refreshing at all. Pod decks are combo decks, plain and simple, and that's fine in small doses, but when half of all decks are the same combo deck, the format feels stale and uninteractive.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Kapol » 19 Jan 2015, 14:35

From my understanding (which I admit isn't very wide), Pod seemed to be getting too good and was a single card that made printing efficient creatures harder than it should be, like Siege Rhino. The fact it was changing from a combo deck to just 'good stuff' was also a problem as I understand it. It feels similar to what was happening to Jund with DRS.

As for Dig, I can see why they did it. It would have been slotted in to Cruise's slot pretty easily. And, while it might not be as good thanks to double blue and not getting three cards, it offered instant-speed and card selection to make it still very strong for 2 mana. Though the foil and playset of non-foil I have feel batman about being banned. It, again, is one I think I might have ended up playing with, as I really like the card.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Kapol » 19 Jan 2015, 14:41

Asthanius wrote:MaRo has said before that Wizards doesn't playtest sets for eternal formats (i.e. non-Standard), as that would require much more time and money than they have available. Additionally, they still want to make fun cards if they're fair in Standard.



I'm not saying don't print cards like Cruise and Dig. I think they're fine cards. I just think that it feels bad to be on the side where you bought a playset, maybe even of foils, that end up being banned so you can't play with them. Dig isn't as hurt since it's still playable in Legacy (though I don't know how good it is). But the people who bought foil Cruises might be feeling put out. And banning cards within a set of them being released feels really... off to me. I'd prefer they just banned it on release, honestly. Making fun cards for standard and EDH doesn't mean they can't test cards for older formats too.

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me they don't playtest Legacy and Vintage. But if they don't playtest modern... that seems really strange given how much they've been trying to push it as a more accessible format.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby korvys » 19 Jan 2015, 14:55

I think the idea is basically to have the players playtest modern, and use the ban list to tweak it, rather than just not printing potentially interesting cards. It means a card might get 3 months to do damage, but in the long run, it's saving them a lot more time and money. They can release powerful cards, and if people can't find a way to deal with them out of 10 years worth of cards, then they ban them.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Lord Hosk » 19 Jan 2015, 16:07

The same complaint comes out every time a powerful card comes out on the lists. "but I bought 4 of them at X"

For wizards to play test every deck in every format would likely drive the price of each pack up considerably they would need a whole new department. prices could jump 75 cents or a dollar a pack which in some places would probably be crippling to the market.

Keep in mind wizards is a small company with less than 700 employees and less 300 on the magic team to playtest every card in every format in three months or less. If memory serves me each "team" dedicated to a set is like 30 people in all the departments with others "donating" their time to play test, and those 30 people are working on multiple sets at a time.

its far easier and cheaper to do it this way and let a hundred or two people get upset for a few weeks then have the whole community ticked off.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Duckay » 19 Jan 2015, 16:10

Playtesting even just one more format (Modern) would require the releases to be further apart or cost a lot more to take on either the extra staff required, or the extra time required, to do that. Not to mention that even playtesting doesn't see everything coming, so the "feel-bad" scenario of buying foil Cruises only to have them banned could still happen. Basically, I fully understand that it really just isn't practical to test for eternal formats.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Kapol » 19 Jan 2015, 16:51

For the record, I'm not saying they need to do extensive testing. They don't need to run every possible deck against every other possible deck. But taking some decks, maybe even just tier 1, and seeing what they do with any changes would be worth something. It's not like we're talking about some breakout card that shot an alright deck to the top as far as I know. We're talking about a card that sounds like it was slotted into most decks with blue in them. And the other card that was played in most of the other blue decks and would have likely taken it's place.

And again, I'm not saying 'don't print the cards at all.' I honestly don't mind the idea of printing powerful cards in standard sets. I just think that there should be some testing done to see if it's too powerful for older formats. And if they find it is, I think pre-emptive bannings are fine. Yes, they might not have caught TC anyways. But it's better than just banning it right away to me.

Maybe they do test somewhat. It's possible they did test it a bit and put it on a watch list. If that's the case, then that's fine. But if they didn't test it at all, then it seems pretty soon to ban it. 4 months doesn't seem like a lot of time for older formats' metas to adapt to new cards.

As I started out by saying, I don't know much about modern. Nor do I know much about Legacy or Vintage. It just feels like it's a weird situation that they printed a card that came out very recently and it is already on a very short list of cards banned in legacy and modern and restricted in vintage.

To be honest, I don't really care that much either way. It just seems like a very awkward situation and overall a very hurried decision to me. But I don't know enough to really say anything with confidence.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby SohNata » 19 Jan 2015, 17:51

I don't normally get on Wizards for not testing eternal formats as I understand the reasoning as to why, but I can't help but feeling that Cruise through was really falling asleep at the wheel. Things like Splinter Twin, Deathrite are understandable...but I can't help but feel this wasn't. The card has danger written all over it.

I understand the pod banning - as many people had pointed out before and now, the reasoning is similar to that of when Survival of the Fittest got banned in Legacy - you can weaken the deck all you want, but it's the engine that's too good. WotC don't want to look over their shoulder about printing strong cards with great ETB or LTB effects that Pod would love. It's a shame as it was a 'very good fair deck', but change is good. Unfortunately the nature of Magic and the secondary market is that you can't do what other games do and ban/un-ban regularly to keep things in a flux if needed. If only you could patch cardboard.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby RedNightmare » 20 Jan 2015, 00:06

@Kapol: I think playtesting is an all or nothing game. Say they only looked at the top decks and what the new cards would do. Ok, so this deck uses this card really well, but maybe one or two cards added to this format now allow a totally new deck to match it and confine it. Also, do we know a deck that completely counters this suped up old deck? I feel to test a deck you need to test for counters, which then need to be tested for counters, etc. etc.

As for buying playsets of foil Treasure Cruises, I agree it sucks, but it happens. for 1, let's be honest, a lot of us saw this coming (I was not surprised to see Treasure Cruis on the list). Additionally, this is the risk you run when you get a foiled playset of a powerful card, it could be banned, I feel you need to understand and accept that when buying them like this.

I agree, it's not a perfect solution, but it's the one we have to live with.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby RadioshackRaider » 20 Jan 2015, 08:33

Personally, I'm not at all bothered by the Booze Cruise ban. I run it in my U/G Infect deck, but only because I can. There are other cards I'd happily run over it.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Kapol » 20 Jan 2015, 17:37

RedNightmare wrote:@Kapol: I think playtesting is an all or nothing game. Say they only looked at the top decks and what the new cards would do. Ok, so this deck uses this card really well, but maybe one or two cards added to this format now allow a totally new deck to match it and confine it. Also, do we know a deck that completely counters this suped up old deck? I feel to test a deck you need to test for counters, which then need to be tested for counters, etc. etc.

As for buying playsets of foil Treasure Cruises, I agree it sucks, but it happens. for 1, let's be honest, a lot of us saw this coming (I was not surprised to see Treasure Cruis on the list). Additionally, this is the risk you run when you get a foiled playset of a powerful card, it could be banned, I feel you need to understand and accept that when buying them like this.

I agree, it's not a perfect solution, but it's the one we have to live with.


I don't agree that testing is all or nothing. If a card pushes a tier 2 deck to tier 1, and isn't oppressive, then that's a perfectly good thing to do. And I don't think something coming out of the blue like Jeskai Ascendancy seemed to for a few weeks is bad. It's mostly just overpowering tier 1 decks that seems to be the issue. TC in particular sounds like it was just slotted into any deck running blue that wasn't combo.

And as I said, it's not that they have to say 'we're not going to print this card and/or adjust it to make it not break it.' But I think that being cautious printing that kind of stuff needs to be considered. If they had TC on a watch list or something, then good on them. I have no problem with what happened. It just doesn't feel like that's the case.

Which leads to my problem with the whole thing. This seems like it was just kind of a rushed decision. If they didn't test it, I think that they should have given more time for the meta to adapt. 4 months doesn't feel like enough time to just ban a card to me. And pre-emptively banning Dig just because it would have taken it's spot without letting that actually happen kind of pushes me towards that line. Though some people say it was making stuff like Scapeshift too good, so I don't know there.

Pod is a different story. It limited what they could do with creatures and seemed to becoming a dominate deck from what they said. So even if I'm a bit disappointed, I understand that.

The big thing for me with this ban is that I would have thought they would have given it at least one more set before they banned them to give some more time to adjust. And, while everyone knew it was going to likely be banned in Modern, I think being banned in Legacy AND restricted in Vintage came out of nowhere. At least nobody I read seemed to be thinking that would happen. And that's again something that makes me feel like this was a somewhat rushed decision.

But I've said repeatedly I don't know enough about anything. So I guess I should just not worry as much about it. This really doesn't effect me in the slightest anyways.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Duckay » 20 Jan 2015, 18:06

The one that surprised me most, to be honest, was being restricted in Vintage. That I didn't expect to see.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby ZePancakes » 20 Jan 2015, 20:32

I think that due to its text being "draw 3 cards" instead of "target player..." was a consideration into its restriction as it dodges misdirection.
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Jenelmo » 20 Jan 2015, 23:52

I believe one of the reason they banned them now instead of waiting 3 months is that the protour in 2 weeks is modern and they didn't want the pro tour mostly either deck with Cruise/dig or deck targeting those decks
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Re: Banlist changes - Modern, Legacy, Vintage

Postby Utilitarian » 21 Jan 2015, 00:16

All hail the new ban list.

I think the Pod ban was fair. It only got more powerful with literally every set released after it, and would only continue to do so. At some point you have to stop it before it becomes unbeatable or warps the entire format to beat it.
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