- I do NOT endorse the banning of Aluren and Goblin Charbelcher. Until there's not a proliferation of them (and I don't think there will ever be), they are just cards potentially annoying that still should be left alone like the other 200 potentially annoying cards in Legacy. The only difference is that they have been successfully played around here, and noticed.
- I think Ezuri is "bad" not because is stronger than Heritage Druid (which is also "bad"), but because it's the way 8 Elf decks over 10 choose to win. Let have them find another way.
- First poll answers mean people like Double Tribal too? That's awesome!
I've been reading for awhile, but never joined an event, and I always thought this was almost a gentleman's tournament.
I think it's a shame that some people are incredibly focused on winning vs. having fun. I think the tribal format is easily one of the most enjoyable, but outside of nihilistic dictatorship of what's legal/not legal; we have to rely on people to not be dicks about it.
Can't someone just say, "No elf decks, no goblin decks, no broken combo decks"? I guess that leaves too much to interpretation though.
Thank you, Paul!
I'm starting to think my point wasn't clear at all.
Banning only for meta consideration (and nobody says cards can't be unbanned at some later point, when the steam is off), not power level.
It's not about "let's make people beat the elves". That's not going to happen. You want to beat the elves specifically, you just do that in a lot of ways. Nobody will help you with that.
And that's why your proposal on the other post is too radical: mana lords are too important for Elves to function as Elves, you leave them alone so people will just start doing decks that exploit that mana boost in other directions than "Elfball" (meaning with this what came from that progenitor = the attempt to lock the game in those specific ways).
As mihahitlor noted, it's not so hard to just kill a mana lord. They are the fuel of the engine, but not the engine we are trying to disarm. Let have Elf players find other, hopefully less ubiquitous (and not weblisted) engines, that's fine.
Long story short, to me consistent winners are fine as long as they are not always the SAME consistent winner in most games (and it's not even about who ends up Top 4, it's about the average player not facing the same deck/combo in three tournaments straight).
We may change the term then. :P
Anyway, it's still true in the current definition of Endangered, some of the tribes with less than 50 members have lords (Kobolds, anyone?).
I want to answer this first because it saddens me. I saw you playing Momir Basic in the Anything Goes room last Saturday during Tribal Apocalypse and I hope that was not a way to make a statement, because THAT would be childish, man. :) But I got there was something that upset you, and I'm sorry. I hope you'll read this anyway.
I thought my point in the article was clear, but probably it wasn't. I'm not wishing for this to be a "gentleman's tournament". No more than WotC is wishing the same for Modern. The banning has nothing to do with the power level. Broken cards in Legacy? Probably a couple hundreds? Nobody is trying to make a list of them to ban them all. Probably my point will be clearer next article when I argue about UNBANNING cards that are currently banned.
We ban cards that make too many games look the same (currently, it's just Punishing and a couple of Elfball cards). In Legacy, this is unacceptable. It's not Pauper. It's not Standard. And yet, of course the Elves will still be strong! I said so in the article myself! And that's the reason the disarming of Elball specifically is acceptable and healthy. Whining doesn't have a role in this (and to be honest, whining about banning is still whining, you know?). Meta engineering has. Meta engineering isn't a simple thing, WotC guys, who do that for a job, still make mistakes a lot of times. But it something you have to do in this game, it's been clear since Alpha. This game is BASED on the meta. You don't leave it alone, like you don't leave the plants in your garden alone because you don't like trimming. They will just die.
Also, forgive me, but the "if you are going to continue to play in this you just have to suck it up and either play Elves/Goblins or lose to them with your bad gentleman deck" is (bitter) nonsense. You just have to look at the statistics: 21 events were won by non-Elf non-Goblin tribes. And that with Elfball (and in part, Glimpse of Nature Elfball) still in the field. I went undefeated with Scouts twice in regular tournaments. With different builds of Shamans, at least four times. With Oozes in regular tournament too. Were there gentleman's decks? No, sir, they were certainly not. But they weren't the same decks every time using the same cards every time. Because that's what seriously makes people quit the tournament: boredom.
Not even trying to recreate the deck list and not writing about the games seems a bit lazy. We don't even know how many wins the deck got or what kind of queue it was.
And btw, deck list gets saved automatically by MTGO. On my PC: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Wizards of the Coast\Magic Online\3.0\Decks\TournamentDecks
You can beat elves with strong removals as we are playing legacy tribal, there are tons of them but people usually dont play that much spot removals.
Regarding Watch list: Ezuri is not that bad, but Heritage Druid is a little broken, but ban is a serious thing.
And i think one of the Punishing Fire or Grove of the Burnwillows should be banned. As this combo dies when you ban Punishing Fire, but you can re-use Punishing Fire even without Grove effeciently.
And also Scepter can be on the watch list as you can abuse it, the way you want. But if it's not used every week it can one of that some pain that you know it's there but Ok at some point. But in the end it's artifact and can be easily destroyed (even you lock oppenent). A lot of people are playing with sort of different artifact or enchantment removals. So it's not that bad when you compare it with Punishing Fire.
Sure, the deck is powerful against average Tribal deck - but there is a way to effectively stop it. Combo elves fall apart against decks with lots of cheap removal (and a pilot who knows what to target), which is a strategy that's also good against majority of other Tribal decks, so you don't have to plan specifically for elves to have an OK matchup against them.
If the point of the banning is to cut down on the number of people clinging to tried and trie, then I am also against it.
The power of elf combo is not in question. It is a consistent winner. But that isn't the point of banning the key cards. The point is to cut down on the number of people clinging to tried and true.
Until not so long ago, I was convinced that elves decks are really overpowered and would've been perfectly fine with banning what I consider three key "combo elves" (Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid and Heritage Druid), but lately I've realized that they are just not that hard to beat if you pack enough cheap spot removal and know which creatures you really need to eliminate (mass removal is also fine in control builds as a complementary solution, but it might be too slow to rely solely on it).
So my new stance on this issue is that I am not in favor of banning any elves. If the matchup proves too difficult for majority of decks it's likely because those decks are far from optimally prepared for Tribal format. You're playing against decks with at least 20 creatures - this means the obvious strategy is to bring a lot of removal (unless you intend not to interact with your opponent and win fast with whatever combo/whacky strategy you have in mind, but then it's kind of silly to complain if your opponent manages to do his thing faster) and you'll also be automatically fine against elves.
Not to mention that in every tournament there are many decks that are harder to crack that an average elf deck. Any deck by Ayanum, NemesisParadigm, Romellos or any other player who play strong decks is tougher to beat. So the problem here is not so much the power level of an average elf deck, but rather players being sick of the elves because they are so prevalent. Which I don't think is a good argument for bannings. Rather, it suggests at nonresponsive meta.
Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire tech, on the other hand, is harder to battle since it requires more specific solutions which aren't as universally good (with a few exceptions like Wasteland, Vindicate etc.). Still not sure about the ban, but I wouldn't be against it.
***
Answers to the questionare:
A.) I would prefer having only 1 special events in a month.
B.) C.) double tribal seems like a fun event.
E.) I'm not really sure about permanently changing definition/rules of Endangered event, but I am not against it.
Im with AJ on Scepter...certainly a watch list candidate. My thoughts on the Fires/Grove engine. It is overpowered compared to say Swords To Plowshares + Path to Exile but it isn't overpowered vs the format. It is as you said quite annoying to see it as an auto include in any green red deck. I think the pairing of that set of cards with Loam/Assault is over the top broken. And my feeling is ban both loam (as much as I love the card, it is becoming ubiquitous) and punishing fires.
Charbelcher is singularly op and I have been wondering when someone would abuse it. Grap's version is imho perfect within Tribal Wars' strictures and barring a really bad hand (no spirit guides or moxen post double mulligan or no charbelcher at all) I suspect it will always win if the belcher sticks. This is merely a matter of drawing Belcher and sculpting a hand to play it and go off. Yeah it is possible to hit a taiga before lethal has been achieved but its not very likely. My verdict: Ban it the next time someone wins the event with it.
Aluren is not in the same league. Despite being an awfully nasty combo you have a lot of moving parts and multiple ways to disrupt it. Granted the combo is relatively quick and a patient player can again sculpt a perfect hand before going off but there are still dangers to be had. More so than Charbelcher. Even though I hated losing to it in the 2hg tribal event I can see the deck falling down and not performing. My verdict: keep an eye on it and things like Dreamhalls/Conflux but don't make a big deal about it until someone starts dominating the top 8 with it.
Elf Combo (Not 'Elfball' as that has to do with fireball combos and is more the progenitor of this archetype.): There are other enablers besides Heritage druid that make this a speedy and deadly combo if the player doesn't lose their mind going into infinite draw loop zone. Which I have seen happen though not in recent memory. Ezuri seems like it is less good if you take out Priest of Titania and the other high mana producers. Verdict: Ban Priest, Heritage, Gaea's Cradle, and the tap 2 elves to produce a mana of any color guy. This still leaves players the option of playing Copperhorn + Ezuri and other slower ways to win with Elf Combo.
A) I'm down with changing up the first week of the month to a "rotating" set of "restrictions", be it 2, 3 or even 4. Doing it twice a month isn't going to happen. I'm a senile old crank with enough on my plate already.
B) Yes
C) Yes
D) TBD
Re: Bannings
Cavern of Souls: Leaning towards letting it play at this point.
Punishing Fire, Ezuri, Heritage Druid, Umbral Mantle, Elvish Archdruid, Nettle Sentinal: on watch.
Goblin Charbelcher, Aluren: we'll see. (personally I thought Wallbelcher was cool)
Plague Bounty: seems silly after thinking about it more, for what you said.
The reason I stopped playing this "contest" is because of the amount of ban and/or elf/goblin whining that takes place here. So I have decided to take my toys and play elsewhere because I don't particularly like banning cards because people whine. Plus, every card that you ban makes Elves or Goblins better. You have to ban whole tribes in order to achieve what you are trying to accomplish.
Here is my summary of the conundrum that Tribal players face:
On the one hand, you can bring a "fun deck" with no shoehorns, no brokenness, etc and just lose to Elves or Goblins because you actually just made a bad vanilla deck.
On the other, you are working on a budget and you bring Elves or Goblins, based on efficacy and availability.
OR you bring something reasonable with a Fire/Grove, Aluren, Scepter, Charbelcher, etc etc etc....that has a shot against both the bad decks and Elves/Goblins...
Any way you slice this, a fun tournament it does not make for someone. Everyone has their own idea of what this tournament is supposed to be. Some believe this to be a 'gentlemen's tournament' where there is a tacit understanding that you can't shoehorn or play Goblins or Elves. Some believe it to be "just a tournament" with prizes on the line, "win at all costs" etc...
Your proposed banning only make Elves and Goblins better...I am sure once raf.azavedo shows up with his Living End deck that people will bitch about banning that again too...(roll eyes), then people will want to ban more Eldrazi Legends, etc ad infinitum. So I suppose if you are going to continue to play in this you just have to suck it up and either play Elves/Goblins or lose to them with your bad gentleman deck...
BTW- You ban Ezuri and people jam Champions, Archdruids, and Overruns and the ilk...Banning Ezuri does not stop the fact that Elves have brokenly fast mana and decent draw engines. Elves can still spam up the battlefield after multiple sweeps.
If anyone disagrees with this, well, that is your prerogative, but I just typed this editorial for something to think about. I am not going to post anything further here because I don't care to argue about it. I get my fill of whining from my children, thank you very much.
"An apaulogy appears...
apaulogy uses 'Jund'
Its Super effective"
Gonna do something different this week, but I still :heart: my Jund deck. I am just brewing for the GP season, which should make modern relevant for about a month on MTGO.
Scepter locking, I got a bit concerned after facing three or so different scepter decks across a week in the format. It's not an unbeatable card, and my concerns were not immediately realised, but it's one that should be watched for now.
It's not just that. If you look back at the time when they gutted Caw Blade, that deck wasn't just strong. It dominated the format.
While both fast and consistent, Infect combo has a number of very different matchups (mentioned in my first post) that are strong, popular decks... and incredibly hard to beat. Look at Legacy, for example. Belcher combo can win on turn 1, tendrils on turn 2 - and nobody wants to ban them.
During Affinity's reign in Standard, even dedicated artifact hate decks often couldn't beat it. If Infect combo becomes dominant, we'll see a surge in black control, which indicates a healthy, balanced metagame.
Thanks for posting the article but I wanted to make sure people knew that the credits are not shared with our bots and that the bot was setup by Cardbot and is run on our servers so make sure to tell the cardbot crew thanks also.
I take that back. I would do it but the bot is always busy. You might need to open a few more otherwise nobody will be able to get in. It's probably busier than the MTGOtraderFreeBot
Still, a nice idea though. It's rare to see nice things on the internet.
Wow man, that's impressive. Thanks. Looking forward to your Pauper explorations..
There are actually binary options trading systems, handful of that they're, that do offer approximately a 15% returning on many out-of-the-money success which can be an incredible gain to think about while narrowing down different trading platforms selections to fit you.
Cumulative, short answer:
- I do NOT endorse the banning of Aluren and Goblin Charbelcher. Until there's not a proliferation of them (and I don't think there will ever be), they are just cards potentially annoying that still should be left alone like the other 200 potentially annoying cards in Legacy. The only difference is that they have been successfully played around here, and noticed.
- I think Ezuri is "bad" not because is stronger than Heritage Druid (which is also "bad"), but because it's the way 8 Elf decks over 10 choose to win. Let have them find another way.
- First poll answers mean people like Double Tribal too? That's awesome!
I've been reading for awhile, but never joined an event, and I always thought this was almost a gentleman's tournament.
I think it's a shame that some people are incredibly focused on winning vs. having fun. I think the tribal format is easily one of the most enjoyable, but outside of nihilistic dictatorship of what's legal/not legal; we have to rely on people to not be dicks about it.
Can't someone just say, "No elf decks, no goblin decks, no broken combo decks"? I guess that leaves too much to interpretation though.
Thank you, Paul!
I'm starting to think my point wasn't clear at all.
Banning only for meta consideration (and nobody says cards can't be unbanned at some later point, when the steam is off), not power level.
It's not about "let's make people beat the elves". That's not going to happen. You want to beat the elves specifically, you just do that in a lot of ways. Nobody will help you with that.
And that's why your proposal on the other post is too radical: mana lords are too important for Elves to function as Elves, you leave them alone so people will just start doing decks that exploit that mana boost in other directions than "Elfball" (meaning with this what came from that progenitor = the attempt to lock the game in those specific ways).
As mihahitlor noted, it's not so hard to just kill a mana lord. They are the fuel of the engine, but not the engine we are trying to disarm. Let have Elf players find other, hopefully less ubiquitous (and not weblisted) engines, that's fine.
Long story short, to me consistent winners are fine as long as they are not always the SAME consistent winner in most games (and it's not even about who ends up Top 4, it's about the average player not facing the same deck/combo in three tournaments straight).
We may change the term then. :P
Anyway, it's still true in the current definition of Endangered, some of the tribes with less than 50 members have lords (Kobolds, anyone?).
I want to answer this first because it saddens me. I saw you playing Momir Basic in the Anything Goes room last Saturday during Tribal Apocalypse and I hope that was not a way to make a statement, because THAT would be childish, man. :) But I got there was something that upset you, and I'm sorry. I hope you'll read this anyway.
I thought my point in the article was clear, but probably it wasn't. I'm not wishing for this to be a "gentleman's tournament". No more than WotC is wishing the same for Modern. The banning has nothing to do with the power level. Broken cards in Legacy? Probably a couple hundreds? Nobody is trying to make a list of them to ban them all. Probably my point will be clearer next article when I argue about UNBANNING cards that are currently banned.
We ban cards that make too many games look the same (currently, it's just Punishing and a couple of Elfball cards). In Legacy, this is unacceptable. It's not Pauper. It's not Standard. And yet, of course the Elves will still be strong! I said so in the article myself! And that's the reason the disarming of Elball specifically is acceptable and healthy. Whining doesn't have a role in this (and to be honest, whining about banning is still whining, you know?). Meta engineering has. Meta engineering isn't a simple thing, WotC guys, who do that for a job, still make mistakes a lot of times. But it something you have to do in this game, it's been clear since Alpha. This game is BASED on the meta. You don't leave it alone, like you don't leave the plants in your garden alone because you don't like trimming. They will just die.
Also, forgive me, but the "if you are going to continue to play in this you just have to suck it up and either play Elves/Goblins or lose to them with your bad gentleman deck" is (bitter) nonsense. You just have to look at the statistics: 21 events were won by non-Elf non-Goblin tribes. And that with Elfball (and in part, Glimpse of Nature Elfball) still in the field. I went undefeated with Scouts twice in regular tournaments. With different builds of Shamans, at least four times. With Oozes in regular tournament too. Were there gentleman's decks? No, sir, they were certainly not. But they weren't the same decks every time using the same cards every time. Because that's what seriously makes people quit the tournament: boredom.
Not even trying to recreate the deck list and not writing about the games seems a bit lazy. We don't even know how many wins the deck got or what kind of queue it was.
And btw, deck list gets saved automatically by MTGO. On my PC: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Wizards of the Coast\Magic Online\3.0\Decks\TournamentDecks
IMO, this pledge is second in terms of "cool factor" only to WotC kicking down IPA Boosters.
gamemaster32 has donated 35 PRM Guru Lands! (5 regular and 2 FOIL of each type) These will go to 18th place at the Euro Event.
"AJ_Impy has pledged a bounty of one playset FOIL Circle of Protection: Red to any player* losing all rounds to RDW!"
ok this cracked me up
it seems significantly wrong to me that a tribe with a "lord" is "endangered"
You can beat elves with strong removals as we are playing legacy tribal, there are tons of them but people usually dont play that much spot removals.
Regarding Watch list: Ezuri is not that bad, but Heritage Druid is a little broken, but ban is a serious thing.
And i think one of the Punishing Fire or Grove of the Burnwillows should be banned. As this combo dies when you ban Punishing Fire, but you can re-use Punishing Fire even without Grove effeciently.
And also Scepter can be on the watch list as you can abuse it, the way you want. But if it's not used every week it can one of that some pain that you know it's there but Ok at some point. But in the end it's artifact and can be easily destroyed (even you lock oppenent). A lot of people are playing with sort of different artifact or enchantment removals. So it's not that bad when you compare it with Punishing Fire.
Sure, the deck is powerful against average Tribal deck - but there is a way to effectively stop it. Combo elves fall apart against decks with lots of cheap removal (and a pilot who knows what to target), which is a strategy that's also good against majority of other Tribal decks, so you don't have to plan specifically for elves to have an OK matchup against them.
If the point of the banning is to cut down on the number of people clinging to tried and trie, then I am also against it.
The power of elf combo is not in question. It is a consistent winner. But that isn't the point of banning the key cards. The point is to cut down on the number of people clinging to tried and true.
Until not so long ago, I was convinced that elves decks are really overpowered and would've been perfectly fine with banning what I consider three key "combo elves" (Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid and Heritage Druid), but lately I've realized that they are just not that hard to beat if you pack enough cheap spot removal and know which creatures you really need to eliminate (mass removal is also fine in control builds as a complementary solution, but it might be too slow to rely solely on it).
So my new stance on this issue is that I am not in favor of banning any elves. If the matchup proves too difficult for majority of decks it's likely because those decks are far from optimally prepared for Tribal format. You're playing against decks with at least 20 creatures - this means the obvious strategy is to bring a lot of removal (unless you intend not to interact with your opponent and win fast with whatever combo/whacky strategy you have in mind, but then it's kind of silly to complain if your opponent manages to do his thing faster) and you'll also be automatically fine against elves.
Not to mention that in every tournament there are many decks that are harder to crack that an average elf deck. Any deck by Ayanum, NemesisParadigm, Romellos or any other player who play strong decks is tougher to beat. So the problem here is not so much the power level of an average elf deck, but rather players being sick of the elves because they are so prevalent. Which I don't think is a good argument for bannings. Rather, it suggests at nonresponsive meta.
Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire tech, on the other hand, is harder to battle since it requires more specific solutions which aren't as universally good (with a few exceptions like Wasteland, Vindicate etc.). Still not sure about the ban, but I wouldn't be against it.
***
Answers to the questionare:
A.) I would prefer having only 1 special events in a month.
B.) C.) double tribal seems like a fun event.
E.) I'm not really sure about permanently changing definition/rules of Endangered event, but I am not against it.
Im with AJ on Scepter...certainly a watch list candidate. My thoughts on the Fires/Grove engine. It is overpowered compared to say Swords To Plowshares + Path to Exile but it isn't overpowered vs the format. It is as you said quite annoying to see it as an auto include in any green red deck. I think the pairing of that set of cards with Loam/Assault is over the top broken. And my feeling is ban both loam (as much as I love the card, it is becoming ubiquitous) and punishing fires.
Charbelcher is singularly op and I have been wondering when someone would abuse it. Grap's version is imho perfect within Tribal Wars' strictures and barring a really bad hand (no spirit guides or moxen post double mulligan or no charbelcher at all) I suspect it will always win if the belcher sticks. This is merely a matter of drawing Belcher and sculpting a hand to play it and go off. Yeah it is possible to hit a taiga before lethal has been achieved but its not very likely. My verdict: Ban it the next time someone wins the event with it.
Aluren is not in the same league. Despite being an awfully nasty combo you have a lot of moving parts and multiple ways to disrupt it. Granted the combo is relatively quick and a patient player can again sculpt a perfect hand before going off but there are still dangers to be had. More so than Charbelcher. Even though I hated losing to it in the 2hg tribal event I can see the deck falling down and not performing. My verdict: keep an eye on it and things like Dreamhalls/Conflux but don't make a big deal about it until someone starts dominating the top 8 with it.
Elf Combo (Not 'Elfball' as that has to do with fireball combos and is more the progenitor of this archetype.): There are other enablers besides Heritage druid that make this a speedy and deadly combo if the player doesn't lose their mind going into infinite draw loop zone. Which I have seen happen though not in recent memory. Ezuri seems like it is less good if you take out Priest of Titania and the other high mana producers. Verdict: Ban Priest, Heritage, Gaea's Cradle, and the tap 2 elves to produce a mana of any color guy. This still leaves players the option of playing Copperhorn + Ezuri and other slower ways to win with Elf Combo.
A) I'm down with changing up the first week of the month to a "rotating" set of "restrictions", be it 2, 3 or even 4. Doing it twice a month isn't going to happen. I'm a senile old crank with enough on my plate already.
B) Yes
C) Yes
D) TBD
Re: Bannings
Cavern of Souls: Leaning towards letting it play at this point.
Punishing Fire, Ezuri, Heritage Druid, Umbral Mantle, Elvish Archdruid, Nettle Sentinal: on watch.
Goblin Charbelcher, Aluren: we'll see. (personally I thought Wallbelcher was cool)
Plague Bounty: seems silly after thinking about it more, for what you said.
The reason I stopped playing this "contest" is because of the amount of ban and/or elf/goblin whining that takes place here. So I have decided to take my toys and play elsewhere because I don't particularly like banning cards because people whine. Plus, every card that you ban makes Elves or Goblins better. You have to ban whole tribes in order to achieve what you are trying to accomplish.
Here is my summary of the conundrum that Tribal players face:
On the one hand, you can bring a "fun deck" with no shoehorns, no brokenness, etc and just lose to Elves or Goblins because you actually just made a bad vanilla deck.
On the other, you are working on a budget and you bring Elves or Goblins, based on efficacy and availability.
OR you bring something reasonable with a Fire/Grove, Aluren, Scepter, Charbelcher, etc etc etc....that has a shot against both the bad decks and Elves/Goblins...
Any way you slice this, a fun tournament it does not make for someone. Everyone has their own idea of what this tournament is supposed to be. Some believe this to be a 'gentlemen's tournament' where there is a tacit understanding that you can't shoehorn or play Goblins or Elves. Some believe it to be "just a tournament" with prizes on the line, "win at all costs" etc...
Your proposed banning only make Elves and Goblins better...I am sure once raf.azavedo shows up with his Living End deck that people will bitch about banning that again too...(roll eyes), then people will want to ban more Eldrazi Legends, etc ad infinitum. So I suppose if you are going to continue to play in this you just have to suck it up and either play Elves/Goblins or lose to them with your bad gentleman deck...
BTW- You ban Ezuri and people jam Champions, Archdruids, and Overruns and the ilk...Banning Ezuri does not stop the fact that Elves have brokenly fast mana and decent draw engines. Elves can still spam up the battlefield after multiple sweeps.
If anyone disagrees with this, well, that is your prerogative, but I just typed this editorial for something to think about. I am not going to post anything further here because I don't care to argue about it. I get my fill of whining from my children, thank you very much.
Have fun with this guys...
"An apaulogy appears...
apaulogy uses 'Jund'
Its Super effective"
Gonna do something different this week, but I still :heart: my Jund deck. I am just brewing for the GP season, which should make modern relevant for about a month on MTGO.
Scepter locking, I got a bit concerned after facing three or so different scepter decks across a week in the format. It's not an unbeatable card, and my concerns were not immediately realised, but it's one that should be watched for now.
It's not just that. If you look back at the time when they gutted Caw Blade, that deck wasn't just strong. It dominated the format.
While both fast and consistent, Infect combo has a number of very different matchups (mentioned in my first post) that are strong, popular decks... and incredibly hard to beat. Look at Legacy, for example. Belcher combo can win on turn 1, tendrils on turn 2 - and nobody wants to ban them.
During Affinity's reign in Standard, even dedicated artifact hate decks often couldn't beat it. If Infect combo becomes dominant, we'll see a surge in black control, which indicates a healthy, balanced metagame.
Congrats on getting engaged. Hopefully you didn't have to sell too many cards to pay for the rock (There is always the wedding however)
Nice work as always on the cast guyz.
Cmon new cards
I take that back. I would do it but the bot is always busy. You might need to open a few more otherwise nobody will be able to get in. It's probably busier than the MTGOtraderFreeBot
Still, a nice idea though. It's rare to see nice things on the internet.
I'll put in some tickets. Sorry Heath, I guess I'll be giving my tix to Hammy instead of MTGOtraders for the meanwhile.
Wow man, that's impressive. Thanks. Looking forward to your Pauper explorations..
Most awesome! Woo hoo!