Magic The Gathering

[AnotherPleb]

My opinion is that the banlist was and is enough and all this bracket shit is needlessly complicating the game and fracturing the playerbase.

Banned as commander wasn't that hard to get either.

 

[Polock]

Still, a point system might be extremely hard to implement, given the amount of cards there is...

Arena already has a pseudo point system in place that weighs your deck based on key cards. Not every card gets a point value but it influences your matchmaking to put you up against similarly pointed brawl decks.

It was previously thought that it was a tier system based only on your commander, but it has been discovered that its more granular and also counts cards in your deck. [Puts on tinfoil hat] Its probably the same system that they use for matchmaking in the regular queue too, except I still feel like they have an algo that lets them identify your decks archetype on top of that.

They clearly have enough data from MTGA and MTGO in order to get a decent point system in place but my main complaint is that it would have to be regularly updated - minimally after every single new card that comes out, maybe more often than that...and it definitely wont be.

It would also be a pain in the ass to keep up with if you're trying to keep your deck under a certain point threshold.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Personally I feel like all they needed was "Banned as a Commander" and two ban lists, one for normies and one for the CEDH tryhards. Instead they just made "about a 7 power level" into 3 categories with no real distinction between except that extra turn spells are haram and how bad your combos are and the old "I admit this is CEDH powerlevel" for 4 and 5 with LITERALLY no distinction except that 4 is using the best cards in the format "ironically".

 

[Flexo]

Still, a point system might be extremely hard to implement, given the amount of cards there is...

That's why I say by default all cards are 0 points (or maybe 1) and then you just list the cards that have point values.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

The Azusa I mentioned before must've been in the $500-600 range minimum (counting cheapest reprints), and the chances of such an expensive deck to be an actual bracket 2 are very slim. Hell, I have a couple of decks around $300 and neither fits into bracket 2. One could techically fit into b2 if I got rid of the tutors, but even without those it's a very strong deck that would obliterate any actual b2.

This is because green's most powerful causal bullshit is allowed to be cheap common level cards and really the gap between "Eldrazi Titan" and "Stonehoof Chieftain" isn't all that meaningful in Bracket 2.

"Oh we have 3 Cultivate Variants and 10 Explosive Vegetation Variants so you really just always have the same cards"

two ban lists, one for normies and one for the CEDH tryhards

Or hear me out...you just ban shit and let CEDH be CEDH because they just wanna play within the rules that get set, they don't give a shit if you ban the degenerate bullshit that crops up.

 

[DootSkeleton]

Tabernacle is especially baffling to me. When the game changers list first dropped, I went to EDHREC and looked up the inclusion rates of both Tabernacle and Trinisphere and they were something like 0.15% and 0.45%, respectively. Calling out cards that see barely any play (and in T-Sphere's case, actually punish the sort of hyper-efficient play that EDH players claim they don't like) is so bizarre when there are way more egregious cards with far higher play rates that somehow dodged inclusion.

Tabernacle is a rare from Legends and is on the Reserve List. As such, the total number of copies in existence is incredibly low, which is why even heavily played English copies regularly sell for >$2k. I'd wager the total number of Tabernacles in existence is lower than the number of EDH decks that would want to play it.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Glacial Chasm

Basically became an auto-include in green decks, you just crop rotation for it and it's an instant-speed fog that most people can't interact with. Obviously it's best in a deck that can recur lands, but it was starting to break into 'casual' because it sets you up to take no damage for a solid 5-6 turns.

Sierra's Realm

I think this is for completion's sake. With Gaea's Cradle on the GC, and Tolarian Academy just banned, Serra's becomes the other big-mana land that snowballs. I'm of the opinion that Cabal Coffers should also be thrown in to the list to keep it preserved.

I would also argue that Tabernacle is a GC when it's actually played, lol. White has a Magus version of it, Magus of the Tabernacle - give that a try and see how it warps games. Tabernacle being a land, and thus easy as shit for green to grab, makes it way better. Frankly, green grabbing nonbasics is just always going to be an issue of this format

Personally I feel like all they needed was "Banned as a Commander" and two ban lists, one for normies and one for the CEDH tryhards.

I see the appeal of a more-in-depth curation, but I also think their first effort should have been to do this before the curation. Banned-as-Commander is 10,000x easier than this brackets shit, and CEDH needs its own banlist (of almost nothing) versus Casual, which could use a lot more.

To me, the advantage of the brackets system is mostly to get around banning everything in casual, with the GC being a soft-ban. I see a big advantage of this system if they can iron out the kinks, because I don't jam staples into all of my decks. Playing something like party-Kharn against some dipshit dropping a mortgage payment a turn is more common in pickup than people like to admit.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Or hear me out...you just ban shit and let CEDH be CEDH because they just wanna play within the rules that get set, they don't give a shit if you ban the degenerate bullshit that crops up.

If that was true CEDH trannies would stop bitching about Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt and Dockside Extortionist being banned "for casual commander" so much that Gavin had to spend 6 paragraphs telling them to cope and seethe in the ban announcement.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

If that was true CEDH trannies would stop bitching about Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt and Dockside Extortionist being banned "for casual commander" so much that Gavin had to spend 6 paragraphs telling them to cope and seethe in the ban announcement.

I don't mind Gavin but that article was kind of a clownshow in some spots.

"We might unban Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial"

Do you really think that competitive players like to have outright broken shit in their games? If that were true people would screech every time that something gets restricted in vintage and wouldn't be really confused as to why Mishra's Workshop never gets restricted despite breaking the format every other year. The retards screaming about the bans were pubstompers who wanted to cast Voja on turn one and faceroll the other 3 players.

Actual Competitive players want good game play. Shit like Lotus and Crypt and Dockside are things you had to play in CEDH..but they weren't good gameplay.

Edit : Also if you spin CEDH off into it's own "Format" what is going to happen is that you will just have a new CEDH Bracket with the new ban list.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Do you really think that competitive players like to have outright broken shit in their games? If that were true people would screech every time that something gets restricted in vintage and wouldn't be really confused as to why Mishra's Workshop never gets restricted despite breaking the format every other year. The retards screaming about the bans were pubstompers who wanted to cast Voja on turn one and faceroll the other 3 players.

Actual Competitive players want good game play. Shit like Lotus and Crypt and Dockside are things you had to play in CEDH..but they weren't good gameplay.

Edit : Also if you spin CEDH off into it's own "Format" what is going to happen is that you will just have a new CEDH Bracket with the new ban list.

Yes I think CEDH and EDH are separate formats that should have separate ban lists in the same way that Vintage isn't just Legacy with the bans restricted instead. I don't think it follows that CEDH needs brackets any more than Vintage does. I think CEDH+EDH needs them currently primarily because the banlist fails to police the much larger EDH format.

 

[Endless Torment]

I personally don't mind brackets as they are solely meant to help facilitate games with randos and it's not required. It also serves zero function once you have your own playgroup or are familiar enough with your lgs. It's not designed to fix the game, but be a different rule 0 discussion.

We might unban Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial

These are two cards I really don't want back ever.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Yes I think CEDH and EDH are separate formats that should have separate ban lists in the same way that Vintage isn't just Legacy with the bans restricted instead. I don't think it follows that CEDH needs brackets any more than Vintage does. I think CEDH+EDH needs them currently primarily because the banlist fails to police the much larger EDH format.

Then you do not understand why CEDH players play CEDH.

You spin it off it will fail like Oathbreaker and Brawl and...that stupid format people created when the bans first happened.

I personally don't mind brackets as they are solely meant to help facilitate games with randos and it's not required. It also serves zero function once you have your own playgroup or are familiar enough with your lgs. It's not designed to fix the game, but be a different rule 0 discussion.

I actually am curious..how a Bracket 3 tournament might go over once things settle down and we get a sensible game changer list. The Choice of "What 3 do I use" might be a really interesting puzzle for every deck to consider.

These are two cards I really don't want back ever.

Nobody ever should, the fact that they are even being considered makes me worry. If you want a really good reason why Prime Time should never be banned..look at when it was banned.

Then think about the lands that have come out since, like the lowest power shit you can do with Titan would be "Get two Scry temples"

 

[Allied-Mastercomputer]

Well shit, I guess I might sell my foil copy of Gifts Ungiven now. Unless I can use it someplace. Hmmmm.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Then you do not understand why CEDH players play CEDH.

You spin it off it will fail like Oathbreaker and Brawl and...that stupid format people created when the bans first happened.

If they create explicit CEDH as it's own containment pit CEDH-fags will either play CEDH, remove their CEDH cards and play the normie commander format (that in this thought experiment will be more curated so if they spike it too hard more cards will be banned) or they will abandon and make their own format with blackjack and hookers. All achieve the goal (making the difference between EDH v CEDH more explicit then having >3 of a list of 20 or so powerful cards randomly selected from EDHrec based on any of a half dozen criteria)

Not that any of this will happen because WotC has spent the last 5+ years relentlessly pushing cards for commander and they would only lose money from trying to make one healthy format much less two. They are perfectly content with Spikes buying new product to make rule 0 discussions pointless and have no real plans to stop them. I'm just saying that anytime they pretend to care about this subject that it rings hollow because the solution is obvious and they should feel bad (but do not)

 

[Endless Torment]

I personally don't see the appeal of CEDH as Canadian Highlander looks like what I would actually want out of a completive 100 singleton format.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'm just saying that anytime they pretend to care about this subject that it rings hollow because the solution is obvious

I think they care, but they are too incompetent and afraid to just fucking ban shit. Nobody actually likes shit like Thassa's Oracle and banning it only improves the format for everyone, but instead of just doing the right thing..they sit with their thumb up their ass because they are afraid of a bunch of retards on twitter and afraid of violating some vague definition of "The spirit of the format" which is why a bunch of obviously broken shit is left in a bunch of formats.

Up the Beanstalk and Monstrous Rage should have gotten yeeted out of Standard...and probably This Town ain't big enough (though that deck is just gonna be an annoying POS for the next 3 years because they are gonna keep fucking around with shit like Pixie given we just got a Kirin with that ability)

Fable and the Delve shit should be kicked out of Pioneer.

Brainstorm should have been kicked out of Legacy.

Mishra's Workshop should have been restricted in Vintage years ago.

But instead WOTC just fucks around and does shit like...getting Universes Beyond Marvel...and doesn't get a license TO PUT IT ON ARENA.

 

[Endless Torment]

Up the Beanstalk and Monstrous Rage should have gotten yeeted out of Standard...and probably This Town ain't big enough (though that deck is just gonna be an annoying POS for the next 3 years because they are gonna keep fucking around with shit like Pixie given we just got a Kirin with that ability)

I think these will banned because I doubt they want the people who come to the game to play FF or Marvel die turn 2 or be unable to keep a permanent on the battlefield. So UB might actually save standard.
I will give them some leeway as I understand why they don't want to ban cards after extending rotation because the whole point was to make is so people could play with their cards longer, but they said it themselves Rage and Beans was not made with three years in mind so they should correct that. Mice and This town were the only ones designed with three years in mind and I'm curious if they actually thought self bounce would be a deck.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'm curious if they actually thought self bounce would be a deck.

I doubt it, most of the cards you bounce are draft chaft.

Like the Cycle that hopeless Nightmare exists in is just to enable Bargain in Limited.

Edit : Also Rage 100% has to go or it's gonna be absolutely broke as fucking hell with Cecil once Cutdown leaves Standard.

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

Also Rage 100% has to go or it's gonna be absolutely broke as fucking hell with Cecil once Cutdown leaves Standard.

I started trying to play standard sultai mill in standard ranked, and I agree 100%. mono-red is just an auto concede at this point to spite them for trying to play the ladder, since you cant ramp to any sort of board wipe to keep them down reasonably. Rage was a cute trick in limited, but its been too damn long in standard. Beans are less of an issue imo, but big cost control could potentially be an issue if people figure out a way to build around that new temur cost reducer.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I started trying to play standard sultai mill in standard ranked, and I agree 100%. mono-red is just an auto concede at this point to spite them for trying to play the ladder, since you cant ramp to any sort of board wipe to keep them down reasonably. Rage was a cute trick in limited, but its been too damn long in standard. Beans are less of an issue imo, but big cost control could potentially be an issue if people figure out a way to build around that new temur cost reducer.

Beans is gonna be a problem because of the Overlords in the very least.

Shit that draws based on mana cost and a bunch of cards that cheat on Mana cost is forever gonna rule standard.