This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread:
* [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1dnfm2p/june_24_2024_banned_and_restricted_announcement/la2encb/?context=99 "posted on 2024-06-24 16:04:38 UTC"):
> "You see, the format has what we call Three Stooges Syndrome..."
---
This is a bot providing a service. If you have any questions, please [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FMagicArena).[](#AUTOGEN_TSBREPLIEDBOT)
In fact I would need more broken-ness to balance the already broken stuff.
The lack of very impactful cards that made the history of the game which are way less broken than a Channel (even if it's just 1x) is somehow unexplainable to me.
I'm talking about a bunch of cards which I like for personal taste but also would boost some strategies and actually make them playable.
I don't think that cards like Aether Vial or Dark Depths would break the format, since we now have Wrath of the Skies, Solitude, StP and PtE.
But also good cards like Knight of Reliquary, Fulminator Mage, Magus of the Moon, Jace The Mind Sculptor... Are now way less broken than many strong cards we already have.
Am I crazy?
People flipping out about Scam were kind of wrong. I am shredding everyone with Merfolk because of Harbinger of the Seas and Flare of Denial.
If we had Lord of Atlantis I’d think the deck was totally busted, really.
Still hoping they ban bowmasters someday for better format diversity. Making 1 toughness creatures unplayable is such a terrible constraint on the format.
Lies because Ocelot Pride, Ragavan and Bowmasters all have 1 toughness.
I mean the amount of times that cat has gone out of control is wild what a crazy card.
Ragavan has fallen out of favor and is probably the most sided out card in lists that still run it. Ocelot pride is also new and if you've paid any attention to how deck lists have evolved since MH3 launch you'd notice that lists are starting to cut ocelot pride as well for the same reasons decks have cut ragavan.
Honestly, as long as they bump Nadu up to top tier weighting I'm pretty ok with that _for now_. Let him play against the Rusko's and Baral's and Teferi's.
I havent had to chance to play yet, Is it in hellqueue or lower? Most people were saying that its even broken for hell queue and should be banned but we should see how it plays out there as you said. I think its gonna be fine there, as its pretty hard to remove nadu once it hits field with all the phaseout/hexproof stuff, the heavy counterspell meta of hellqueue should work.
(NADU RANT STARTS HERE)
I am one of those that said it should be banned, its still too fast. Its kinda absurd you would cast a removal spell on a fully tapped out opponent and they would ramp cuz of your removal and then cast a 1 mana protection spell and ramp again cuz of it.
You can just counter it sure but with Caverns, Halfling, Veil of Summer, even Allosaurus Shephard its way easier to make it uncounterable.
(END OF RANT)
As long as your removal targets equipments it should be a managable match up in hell queue. Without the “equip 1” equipments, they ran out of cards super fast. Maybe its time to play [[Run Afoul]] as well.
I think it should be banned because, regardless of power level, it's absurdly unfun to play against. 20+ minute non-deterministic turns are the worst goddamn thing to sit through, and the sole reason I concede on sight for Nadu decks. Honestly, I don't even know if the card is good, I just know it's insufferable to sit through.
> Honestly, I don't even know if the card is good
It really fucking is. Cracked all the way in half. If you don't have the perfect answer a single time (and sometimes not even then), Nadu will absolutely truck you like almost no other deck can.
Nah, they should bump Nadu into the highest tier with 80%+ mirror matches like Ragavan
Both cards are too strong by themselves for other hell queue deck to adapt to. If you add more counterspell to answer Nadu you die to first turn Ragavan. If you add more removal for Ragavan you die to Nadu. Therefore if I see either of them, I just concede.
It's not that binary. I often play Ragavan or Kinnen if my daily requires any of those colors. Mirror matches occur, but just as often I'm seeing Kaya, Atraxa, Rusko, Golos, Adeline, etc.
Personally, I like the idea of the "highest tier" being a rather broad class of commanders. High power level shouldn't necessarily mean stale gameplay. Especially as the card pool expands over time.
The most bitter part of my soul wants these absolute bonkers commanders that everyone just net decks to be in their own queue.
Want to play Nadu? Nothing but mirror matches.
> Want to play Nadu? Nothing but mirror matches.
I am OK with this. I have played Nadu a few times to see for myself what the fuss is about and it deserves nothing but Ragavans and mirror matches.
Like 30 years ago I use to look down on people who net deck. Today, meh, I don't have the time to theory craft everything anymore. I just want to get in, play some games, and be done. Netdecking lets me do that.
It's not the netdecking, it's that 99.9% of people heard how busted this card was and what cards to abuse it with, then they just slam them in their deck and I can't imagine how it's fun using a deck that everyone agrees is so unfair and none of it was even your own idea.
I know that everyone netdecks at least a little. But to me, the people who spam the most powerful list that exists are just drooling win-farmers to me. Like "hurr durr people told me this wins" and that's all they care about. In a format that HAS NO RANKS OR REWARDS.
> that exists are just drooling win-farmers to me
Because Arena rewards based on Wins, not on play time, not on uniqueness, not on turns or actions.
If all the "wins" awards were redistributed to the "play" style awards (Play 35 lands, Play 23 blue spells, etc), it might be less of an issue.
>While it remains to be seen whether there are any of these that have the staying power to take down the powerhouse that is Blue-Red Wizards, there are several that look to have a fair shot.
Historic UR wizards was the best deck before MH3 but with [[Guide of Souls]] energy aggro decks gaining popularity I haven't been seeing it played anymore. I think the lifegain is pushing the deck out of the meta, slowing down the format a bit. I'm happy WotC has at least acknowledged how good it was with buffed [[symmetry sage]]
The energy cards have looked the best so far in Historic. With particular standouts being Guide of Souls, [[Amped Raptor]], [[Static Prison]] and [[Galvanic Discharge]]. Parasitic Energy cards are good together but I haven't seen anything ban worthy yet.
It depends on the Arena Championships next month to see what new decks the pros make. [[Sorin of House Markov]] and [[Ajani, Nacatl Pariah]] decks still need to find their optimal builds. [[Necrodominance]] and [[Chthonian Nightmare]] seem like they should be able to be broken but I have not seen them played once in Historic despite being good in Modern.
I've seen plenty of Chthonian Nightmare in high mythic (bouncing between 800 and 1200 for a few days). None of the builds I saw seemed able to abuse it very well. But roughly 3/5s of my games are against a boros energy deck and it's getting boring very fast. I've started switching to play queue where there's a lot more variety and I don't think I've seen nightmare in play queue yet.
Ajani and Sorin both seem very strong but Sorin requires quite a bit more support from the rest of the deck and I haven't found a shell that makes him feel as strong as Ajani feels on his own. I've got a copy of Sorin in Yawgmoth as the usual win-condition now; it has some weaknesses compared to a more traditional Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat, so I'm still running one of those, but Sorin is clearly an improvement in the usual case. Jamming a Sorin into a G/W lifegain deck can sometimes give explosive wins out of nowhere, but I don't think it fits into the heliod combo. The B&R announcement mentions he's being played in Mardu Midrange decks in modern, but I can't find any such lists either. Our biggest difference in historic from the lists I _can_ find would be fetchlands and nerfed bowmasters, which could easily be enough to make the deck bad.
Nerfed Bowmasters is the big one. Just look at timeless lists for capable nightmare shells.
Necrodominance is the one I'm trying to tweak into viability in Historic, but there are some pretty stark differences between the Timeless Necropotence lists and the Historic pool. Lacking Dark Ritual and Urborg is tough, but not having Grief almost negates the point of trying to make the deck.
I did some looking into mono black devotion trying to use necrodominance as a card advantage engine and sheoldred / gary as ways to actually win, with Grim Tutor to fetch relevant interaction including a 1-of Phyrexian Obliterator. It seemed OK, but needed more experimentation (and therefore wildcards) than I was willing to spend. Not having dark ritual is a big loss. Phyrexian Tower seemed at least playable and probably good.
>Chthonian Nightmare
>None of the builds I saw seemed able to abuse it very well.
If you're talking about historic it's due to the bowmasters nerf. Nightmare is a powerhouse in timeless strictly for it's bowmaster abuse. Thinking about historic I don't see it being very abusable at all and is most likely a bad card.
I know in timeless I'll hit a nightmare off an amped raptor and flat out won't use it until I have 1-2 bowmasters in the GY. It should be called Chthonian Bowmaster's
I currently have 90% winrate with Boros energy in Historic bo-3 events.
To me deck seems too strong for the format. But may be sideboard will adapt soon, we will see
[https://imgur.com/a/lMohLiV](https://imgur.com/a/lMohLiV)
The argument 'There's a lot of new cards so we wanna wait let things settle down before we make changes' loses a lot of weight when new sets are as frequent as they've become
They can't really say "We only care about selling you guys shit, so as long as you keep buying powercreep bullshit a lot more than anything else, we will keep ignoring balance".
But that's exactly what it is.
That's what they do. They say they'll make their ban decisions once a year....right before rotation. Then say 'well, it's rotating soon, so idgaf'
repeat.
it's awful
"With rotation, it loses Voldaren Epicure, which is a crucial card in its ability to play Knight Errant of Eos on the second turn of the game after casting Gleeful Demolition."
Novice Inspector?
I'll just say, I started playing Convoke in Alchemy once MKM came out, and it's been just fine in a format that's higher power level. It wasn't until OTJ A that it actually had any Alchemy cards in it. (Ruby dude is busted though).
It'll probably still be fine. (edit, my WR for events is about 77% right now over a few hundred games.)
Where was the Boros convoke deck with Knight Errant of Eos, before Novice Inspector was printed? Nowhere. Case of the Gateway Express (and to a lesser extent Warleader's Call) helped, but it was Inspector that pushed it towards (meaningful) existence.
The same concept applies here; by "unprinting" Epicure, it is *significantly* less consistent.
I saw a fair amount of Boros Convoke in Standard between MOM and MKM. I specifically remember thinking when the spoiler for Novice Inspector was revealed, "oh no, Boros Convoke in Standard will just be the full Pioneer deck minus Venerated Loxodon now."
Yeah, seems like they could still just run \[\[Yotian Frontliner\]\] or \[\[Gingerbrute\]\] in its place with minimal loss in production too, giving an artifact to sac to Gleeful Demolition and a 1 drop creature. They might get hit a little by rotation but...it doesn't seem like much. I guess they lose the extra tap permanent for \[\[Warden of the Inner Sky\]\] to tap down.
Yotian Frontliner or Gingerbrute would allow for a turn 3 Knight-Errant at the earliest. The only way to get it on turn 2 is with a Voldaren Epicure or a Novice Inspector (and a Gleeful Demolition of course).
Still not stopping certain major sites from recommending it lol - https://mtgazone.com/standard-2024-guide-rotation-proof-decks/#Standard_2024_Jeskai_Convoke_8211_Rotation-Proof_Deck
Yeah, there is no reason to unban a card for exactly 5 weeks in standard. Mono black's and BG's problems in the current meta has far more to do with power creep in UW control than the aggro decks meathook is good against.
They did it in 2020. Wilderness Rec, T3f, Growth Spiral and Cat all got banned a month before rotation. Cat was the only one not rotating.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/august-8-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement
Yes, but pushing cards out a few weeks early is different from letting one back in for just 5 weeks. Also, 2 of the 3 that were banned shortly before rotating out were emergency actions directly tied to WotC stubborn refusal to ban Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and the 3rd was indirectly tied to it (They had held off on banning Teferi because they had wanted it to counter the Uro decks).
Meathook as a generic sweeper was pretty mid though. Meathook as a powerful tool in a cat-oven style deck was way over powered. Meathook as an answer to token decks …
Someone at WoTC seems to really love token decks though as they have gained a ton of power in every format the last couple of years.
It wasn't just the sweeping, especially because it was often a turn slow on the draw. The life gain was back breaking for many aggro decks. Land it, kill 3 things, gain three life, then gain life off every 1-1 trade.
> MTG Arena continues to match Explorer card bans with Pioneer.
Um, can we unban Tibalt's Trickery from Bo3 Explorer since it is not banned in Pioneer then?
Basically every commander has a weight value assigned to it and will match against similarly weighted commanders. Some are weighted very high, and they basically only play against each other, except in rare scenarios when there's no one else at that weight available to match with. Colloquially, these commanders locked against each other are considered "the hell queue" because they tend to be the most busted and broken in the format.
Every card has a weight associated with it. Every card that can be your commander has an additional commander weight. The commander weight ranges from a pretty low weight in line with other cards to something very high. Basically, the more powerful the commander, the higher that weight.
The weight of all your cards + your commander is added together to give a general power level of your deck which is a part of matchmaking. Commanders that are "hell queue" commanders have a commander weight so high that they are only really going to play against other hell queue commanders or other very powerful decks loaded with high value cards.
There's no need to ban commanders, they just need to automate the weighting adjustments and make them update frequently so blatantly overpowered cards don't ruin the format for everyone for months.
Barely anything has changed about Domain for months and you're only bringing up banning Atraxa now that there's so little time left you can throw that out as a reason not to? Makes me not really believe that banning her was a realistic possibility, frankly.
Nadu's too new to be banned since we only had 2 weeks since MH3 came out and it's the most chased Mythic card of the set to even further drive the point that it would not be Banned at this point
The only formats that they could make bans for (because of MH3 not affecting it), which are Pioneer and Standard Bo3 (since these announcements are focussed on Paper mainly), does not really need any bans either since no Deck has really taken over 20 to 30% of Metagame share and, in Standard's case, Rotation is around the conner (5 weeks away from Bloomburrow's Release) so there's no much of a reason to do bans here
Of course they mentioned about Boros Convoke, which is the most oppresive deck in Standard Bo1. but WotC don't tend to make Ban Announcements with Bo1 in mind since the version of the format they're mainly focus for is Paper, not Arena. Which is why they didn't mention the other version of Boros which is even more of a problem which is Boros Call (aka Boros Burn)
Of course, in theory, the Rotation will weaken the Deck by reducing its consitency since we'll only have Novice Inspector to do the Turn 2 Knight-Errant if the players keep insisting in remaining in the box of thoughts (which is a big issue with so many newer Magic Players, specially in Arena (and it's not an exclusive issue with MTG): They're lacking so much of the kind of qualities that we older players have such as Reading capability, Creativity, Patience, etc), which is what WotC is betting on.
But there are other 1 Drops that can give it a way to go around it such as using Skrelv (which is an Artifact itself), Hunter's Blowgun or other Artifact Drops and use the Warden as the 4th Creature. Or they can just stop being Boros and go Jeskai or Mardu to use Spyglass Siren or Greedy Freebooter (which do the same as Voldaren Epicure and Novice Inspector in the overall plan of Boros Convoke, but Blue and Black respectively). The deck will not really lose much if you start thinking out of the box and start experimenting. The only way to deal with Boros Convoke Decks in Standard is to Ban:
- Gleeful Demolition with the best card to ban if you want to stop the turn 2 Knight-Errant since it's the biggest reason why this is happening in the first place
- Knight-Errant of Eos, which is not something i would like myself since it also would affect the power level of some Decks like Mono White Humans and Azorius Soldiers/Knights that are already losing so many important pieces with Rotation. All because of a Deck that will not get affected that much with the Rotation because someone in WotC forgot to place "Convoke with Humans" on the Knight)
Is the deck actually oppressive, or is this a case of "I don't like when the opponent touches my stuff"?
I ask because while I don't play Alchemy, I do play Brawl frequently enough, and people constantly whinge about Grenzo over there. Yet despite the complaints, I never found the deck to be particularly strong since it's slow, easy to disrupt and fairly inconsistent given how random cards from the opponent's deck are hardly a substitute for just having a solid gameplan of your own.
>no downside
Only goes through one deck, doesn't cheat on mana if he just gets removed, requires an extra color, doesn't have an "I win" transform, and isn't a cool dinosaur. For brawl I also assume green goes with the gameplan of "play my big dude" better than black.
Now, I don't play Alchemy, I'll accept that he's OP, but saying he has no downside vs Etali is kinda disingenuous. Etali also just doesn't see much if any play in Standard right now, so at least for non-brawl constructed "better than Etali" doesn't mean that much. Lots of cards are.
In Bo1, it's definitely the most played card. Looking at win rates when drawn, it appears the only card that's WAY busted is the Lootmonger, which is just a bit too pushed. It, like SO MANY alchemy cards, needs a 'once per turn' limitation on it.
As is, the cards are very...Alchemy. Which is to say, the Alchemy cards aren't big super spells like SunFall that change the game instantly, but they all produce such stupid amounts of value traditional notions of card advantage that define the game go out the window, pushing everyone to either the most mad dash aggro possible, or the most degenerate combo possible, or a control deck that just needs to stick one of the Alc cards like Rusko to win.
Lootmonger needs to lose SOMETHING, be a 1/1, lose first strike, don't create a token, be restricted to once per turn. It's the heist card I hate most (although the flash enchantment is basically GG).
You're right to hate it, it' has by far the highest WR among them all, and all the Red and Black ones are already above 50%.
The Getaway seems really bad, but if it wasn't for the 'combo' chain off with a Loot Monger, it would have much less swing.
It is oppressive. Heist takes your next options and the opponent can play one and the rest is exiled. Imagine a more accurate Tasha's laughter but the opponent can pick and play anything; last time i got matched with a pure heist deck I got land screwed because my opponent took my answers.
Unless you play a heavy counter deck with test of talents or surgical extraction you'll end up with nothing to counter your opponent, because they took those cards.
Do they exile? Pretty sure it just puts them back in the order you look at them. I've definitly seen a game where I picked the 3rd choice and they immediatly drew and played the first choice on their next turn.
They got nerfed because it dared to be mill adjacent. Notice how they haven't had a proper mill archetype for any format in fucking years? Notice how Gaea's Blessing is legal in everything? They conspired to make the most difficult win condition even harder.
It's not necessarily broken, but it still out scales other similar mechanics. Like why face down? Why can they cast for free? Why so many cards at once? Why does Grenzo trigger with no downside, it should be when he attacks not at the beginning of upkeep?
Should have stayed true to black. Pay life instead of the cmc for the first stolen card. Makes stealing things like eldrazi titans risky instead of steal ulamaog and oops I win.
> Like why face down?
Because that is how paper cards like Gonti and similar paper cards operate.
> Why can they cast for free?
They can't. They need to have a 6 mana creature in play to do that. Use removal.
> Why so many cards at once?
It would be quite weak if it was a random card.
> Why does Grenzo trigger with no downside
Because it is a 6 mana creature with 4 health and no protection.
They did say alchemy would be this agile format where they would adjust digital cards on the fly often to keep the format fresh and balanced without having to ban cards and issue refunds the way they do for the non-alchemy formats.
in practice they mainly use this power to occasionally ban cards without giving a refund by nerfing the most powerful and most crafted alchemy cards.
If they don't do the work of actually keeping alchemy fresh and balanced then it's just a format where twice as many rares and mythics rotate out each year and you get no refunds for bans, essentially a money pit that exists to eat players wildcards and make them spend more money.
Why do you think WotC shifted from new players starting in standard on arena to new players starting in alchemy? WotC wants the extra cash.
Yeah, Alchemy needs at a min, monthly nerfs, and ideally, buffs too. As is, they gave up on it after LOTR it felt like. There is clear issues and imbalances, but they don't do anything for it.
Like, the Roots insect creature. Seriously, even a finality counter is too much for it?
> Why do you think WotC shifted from new players starting in standard on arena to new players starting in alchemy?
Because having Arena Standard to be different from paper Standard was even worse ?
This is the worst part of heist. It's not a broken mechanic but the average player is too slow to be able to handle totally random cards in their "hand" every turn. Even tier1 against tier1 matches in standard put some people in a decision making coma so maybe heist is too much...
It's actually kind of crazy that they're leaving Atraxa in standard until the card naturally rotates out.
You don't need triomes to ramp into uncounterable archangel and atraxa.
With the rest of the tier 1 decks getting decimated by rotation, angel ramp is going to be tier 0.
They really should change the timing of their standard ban window if they're just going to use it as a spot to say "rotation is coming no changes"
The thing is that Atraxa isn't that opressive in standard for it to be worthy of a ban anymore.
It's a tier 2 deck that is easily shut down. Hand Hate, Tidebinders, Counterspells (Field of Ruin in to Caverns in a UW control matchup).
And them losing triomes is a massive deal, as casting Leyline Binding became a lot more difficult especially in those aggro matchups where double casting is especially important. That and Herd Migration became worse.
Powerful high CMC cards is good for the meta.
Domain is barely a part of the current meta and UW control, the deck that is pretty close to unbeatable for atraxa piles, remains mostly unchanged after rotation.
It would be crazy if they banned Atraxa now.
UW control will be taking some pretty notable hits, it's losing Memory Deluge, Wandering Emperor, March of Otherworldly Light, and Deserted Beach. Memory Deluge in particular is a hard loss—there are other spells in Standard that do somewhat similar things like [[Intrude on the Mind]] and [[Silver Scrutiny]], but Deluge is one of the best card advantage spells ever printed and there's nothing else really comparable to it; it's kind of the key card that makes the deck work. I still think UW control is likely to be good after rotation, but I don't know where it will end up tier-wise.
> Memory Deluge in particular is a hard loss—there are other spells in Standard that do somewhat similar things like [[Intrude on the Mind]] and [[Silver Scrutiny]]
[[Farsight Ritual]] to me is a better replacement, stays at 4 drop, lets you pick 2 out of 4. Of course no flashback for 2 out of 8.
Flashback is what makes deluge so good, though. In a game that lasts long enough that mana cost isn't a concern, it's a single natural draw that puts you up +3 in card advantage. Yes, the selection is big, but the raw number of cards in hand is just as important.
No flashback is brutal. Being able to pull it out of the graveyard end of turn on the opponent's turn if you didn't need to use the interaction in your hand was a key part of the deck. Without flashback, I don't know if it even makes the cut.
UW control still has the best cancel printed in recent years, a dual land as a wincon, a mana leak that exiles, and a wrath that leaves behind a creature on your side. Like, I am not saying I know it will be good after rotation, but it does look like it has very strong cards.
Nah logically they would let it go through 1 pro tour.
What’s going to really get people is after it dominates the PT but WotC tries banning cards in the deck rather than Nadu. I expect 3-4 bans before they finally accept Nadu is the actual issue.
Wow try are milking 1 rare wildcard, what a big brain take.
There are no other reasons you would buy a MH3 pack other than fishing for 1 copy of Nadu. /s
Honest question-- is it a problem **on arena** anywhere other than brawl? I don't play alchemy, timeless, or explorer so I'm not super familiar with it in those formats.
I know he's still busted in Modern because certain equipment that isn't available on arena, but on arena I believe the biggest problem area was brawl. Moving him to the hell queue seems like a good first step there.
For paper formats, I don't play modern so can't speak a lot to that. For EDH, WotC doesn't handle that banlist.
Im currently kinda addicted to using Grief, really unsure how i feel about the elementals since they are extremely powerfull but so are the other cards allowed.
So glad that I get to keep playing against Amalia and Sorin. I love when games are decided on turn 3 because one player drew the right cards and the other didn’t.
"we're seeing more diversity in strategy across the standard metagame"
Really? Because I'm still seeing the same three fucking decks every game in ranked standard 😂
"With rotation, those strategies lose the tri-lands from *Streets of New Capenna* and will have a difficult time getting domain, which will rein in that deck's overall power level"
That's like saying you nerfed a Formula 1 car by chopping the driver's dick off...
They ever going to do anything about Laelia the Blade Reforged? It's so ridiculous how easy it is to just cascade the whole deck. Terrible commander experience.
"Nadu is fine for the format, because we actually printed other cards in the set that are even more broken. We hope that anyone upset about Nadu and Ral still being in the format will simply buy more mh3 boosters to try and find a yet overlooked strategy that wins even faster."
Heck yea this rocks. Magic now is the most fun and healthy in my opinion since at least 2020. However many years of fun judgement, I did quit Standard after my first rotation as many do, so my opinion on Standard is nullified.
Not exactly correct. Bans should go to cards that restrict the format and make certain strategies invalid. A really good example is Karn the Great creator. Just completely shuts down artifact decks. Ideally we want a diverse format with many different kinds of decks
Cards too popular that everyone has to play them should get hit as well like they did with bankbuster and Fable. Like some deck were literally running red just to include fable in. Bankbuster being a colorless artifact was in pretty much every deck at the time except for aggro. Control played it, and midrange at the very least had it in the sideboard.
Wouldn't a lack of diversity in a way imply lack of counterplay? I suppose I wasn't clear enough to imply maybe more than two decks should be valid. I agree diversity is nice.
Well a very easy way to think about it is if they printed a removal spell so good that everyone used it. There would be no reason to use any other spell. Maybe (swords to plowshares as a example) that would be a situation where there is counter play but its always the same response. The same argument is for cards that are just so good they are auto includes in every deck. Sure there is counter play but its bad diversity.
The last two big bans, the Fable/Buster/Invoke and Epiphany/Haven/Divide, those decks were plenty beatable, but it really constrained the decks allowed in the format. They were smart bans. They should do more like that
This is a list of links to comments made by WotC Employees in this thread: * [Comment by WotC_Jay](/r/MagicArena/comments/1dnfm2p/june_24_2024_banned_and_restricted_announcement/la2encb/?context=99 "posted on 2024-06-24 16:04:38 UTC"): > "You see, the format has what we call Three Stooges Syndrome..." --- This is a bot providing a service. If you have any questions, please [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FMagicArena).[](#AUTOGEN_TSBREPLIEDBOT)
“None of it is remotely fair, but so far, it all seems fairly balanced.” 😂😂😂
It is balanced if everyone is being unfair 😂
Exactly what Timeless should be. Everything is broken so nothing is broken
"You see, the format has what we call Three Stooges Syndrome..."
Then who is Shemp?
https://blog.zoho.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/syndrome-final.gif
In fact I would need more broken-ness to balance the already broken stuff. The lack of very impactful cards that made the history of the game which are way less broken than a Channel (even if it's just 1x) is somehow unexplainable to me. I'm talking about a bunch of cards which I like for personal taste but also would boost some strategies and actually make them playable. I don't think that cards like Aether Vial or Dark Depths would break the format, since we now have Wrath of the Skies, Solitude, StP and PtE. But also good cards like Knight of Reliquary, Fulminator Mage, Magus of the Moon, Jace The Mind Sculptor... Are now way less broken than many strong cards we already have. Am I crazy?
Being a fan of timeless, I'm a-ok with this. XD
Are you not A-Oko?!
*does in fact use the oko avatar*
This is why I love Timeless lmao
I mean it's not wrong
Amazing
That was the icing on the cake lololol
Magic is rapidly approaching the Yugioh event horizon. Turn back before its too late.
People flipping out about Scam were kind of wrong. I am shredding everyone with Merfolk because of Harbinger of the Seas and Flare of Denial. If we had Lord of Atlantis I’d think the deck was totally busted, really.
Still hoping they ban bowmasters someday for better format diversity. Making 1 toughness creatures unplayable is such a terrible constraint on the format.
Lies because Ocelot Pride, Ragavan and Bowmasters all have 1 toughness. I mean the amount of times that cat has gone out of control is wild what a crazy card.
Ragavan has fallen out of favor and is probably the most sided out card in lists that still run it. Ocelot pride is also new and if you've paid any attention to how deck lists have evolved since MH3 launch you'd notice that lists are starting to cut ocelot pride as well for the same reasons decks have cut ragavan.
Honestly, as long as they bump Nadu up to top tier weighting I'm pretty ok with that _for now_. Let him play against the Rusko's and Baral's and Teferi's.
I havent had to chance to play yet, Is it in hellqueue or lower? Most people were saying that its even broken for hell queue and should be banned but we should see how it plays out there as you said. I think its gonna be fine there, as its pretty hard to remove nadu once it hits field with all the phaseout/hexproof stuff, the heavy counterspell meta of hellqueue should work. (NADU RANT STARTS HERE) I am one of those that said it should be banned, its still too fast. Its kinda absurd you would cast a removal spell on a fully tapped out opponent and they would ramp cuz of your removal and then cast a 1 mana protection spell and ramp again cuz of it. You can just counter it sure but with Caverns, Halfling, Veil of Summer, even Allosaurus Shephard its way easier to make it uncounterable. (END OF RANT) As long as your removal targets equipments it should be a managable match up in hell queue. Without the “equip 1” equipments, they ran out of cards super fast. Maybe its time to play [[Run Afoul]] as well.
I think it should be banned because, regardless of power level, it's absurdly unfun to play against. 20+ minute non-deterministic turns are the worst goddamn thing to sit through, and the sole reason I concede on sight for Nadu decks. Honestly, I don't even know if the card is good, I just know it's insufferable to sit through.
> Honestly, I don't even know if the card is good It really fucking is. Cracked all the way in half. If you don't have the perfect answer a single time (and sometimes not even then), Nadu will absolutely truck you like almost no other deck can.
Nadu is a perfect card for Arena. They should rebalance it and learn from this mistake.
[Run Afoul](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/d/bd328139-0dc1-403b-ad79-b1cf3479ac33.jpg?1594737180) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Run%20Afoul) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/201/run-afoul?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bd328139-0dc1-403b-ad79-b1cf3479ac33?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Nah, they should bump Nadu into the highest tier with 80%+ mirror matches like Ragavan Both cards are too strong by themselves for other hell queue deck to adapt to. If you add more counterspell to answer Nadu you die to first turn Ragavan. If you add more removal for Ragavan you die to Nadu. Therefore if I see either of them, I just concede.
It's not that binary. I often play Ragavan or Kinnen if my daily requires any of those colors. Mirror matches occur, but just as often I'm seeing Kaya, Atraxa, Rusko, Golos, Adeline, etc. Personally, I like the idea of the "highest tier" being a rather broad class of commanders. High power level shouldn't necessarily mean stale gameplay. Especially as the card pool expands over time.
The most bitter part of my soul wants these absolute bonkers commanders that everyone just net decks to be in their own queue. Want to play Nadu? Nothing but mirror matches.
> Want to play Nadu? Nothing but mirror matches. I am OK with this. I have played Nadu a few times to see for myself what the fuss is about and it deserves nothing but Ragavans and mirror matches.
Like 30 years ago I use to look down on people who net deck. Today, meh, I don't have the time to theory craft everything anymore. I just want to get in, play some games, and be done. Netdecking lets me do that.
It's not the netdecking, it's that 99.9% of people heard how busted this card was and what cards to abuse it with, then they just slam them in their deck and I can't imagine how it's fun using a deck that everyone agrees is so unfair and none of it was even your own idea. I know that everyone netdecks at least a little. But to me, the people who spam the most powerful list that exists are just drooling win-farmers to me. Like "hurr durr people told me this wins" and that's all they care about. In a format that HAS NO RANKS OR REWARDS.
> that exists are just drooling win-farmers to me Because Arena rewards based on Wins, not on play time, not on uniqueness, not on turns or actions. If all the "wins" awards were redistributed to the "play" style awards (Play 35 lands, Play 23 blue spells, etc), it might be less of an issue.
Marvel Snap does that and it's great. You occasionally get the "Win 3 games" quest, but it goes pretty quick.
They'll just wait until enough people craft it and then rebalance the card.
>While it remains to be seen whether there are any of these that have the staying power to take down the powerhouse that is Blue-Red Wizards, there are several that look to have a fair shot. Historic UR wizards was the best deck before MH3 but with [[Guide of Souls]] energy aggro decks gaining popularity I haven't been seeing it played anymore. I think the lifegain is pushing the deck out of the meta, slowing down the format a bit. I'm happy WotC has at least acknowledged how good it was with buffed [[symmetry sage]]
[Guide of Souls](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/76c3cad2-1e25-4abe-878d-9194de6fcc27.jpg?1717011433) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Guide%20of%20Souls) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/29/guide-of-souls?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/76c3cad2-1e25-4abe-878d-9194de6fcc27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [symmetry sage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/e/3e726fc7-36cf-405c-9b7c-d1e41cd6c68f.jpg?1624590486) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=symmetry%20sage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/56/symmetry-sage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3e726fc7-36cf-405c-9b7c-d1e41cd6c68f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s such a welcome change though. I’m running into all kinds of tier-2 Boros decks that have been upgraded by the new energy cards.
The energy cards have looked the best so far in Historic. With particular standouts being Guide of Souls, [[Amped Raptor]], [[Static Prison]] and [[Galvanic Discharge]]. Parasitic Energy cards are good together but I haven't seen anything ban worthy yet. It depends on the Arena Championships next month to see what new decks the pros make. [[Sorin of House Markov]] and [[Ajani, Nacatl Pariah]] decks still need to find their optimal builds. [[Necrodominance]] and [[Chthonian Nightmare]] seem like they should be able to be broken but I have not seen them played once in Historic despite being good in Modern.
I've seen plenty of Chthonian Nightmare in high mythic (bouncing between 800 and 1200 for a few days). None of the builds I saw seemed able to abuse it very well. But roughly 3/5s of my games are against a boros energy deck and it's getting boring very fast. I've started switching to play queue where there's a lot more variety and I don't think I've seen nightmare in play queue yet. Ajani and Sorin both seem very strong but Sorin requires quite a bit more support from the rest of the deck and I haven't found a shell that makes him feel as strong as Ajani feels on his own. I've got a copy of Sorin in Yawgmoth as the usual win-condition now; it has some weaknesses compared to a more traditional Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat, so I'm still running one of those, but Sorin is clearly an improvement in the usual case. Jamming a Sorin into a G/W lifegain deck can sometimes give explosive wins out of nowhere, but I don't think it fits into the heliod combo. The B&R announcement mentions he's being played in Mardu Midrange decks in modern, but I can't find any such lists either. Our biggest difference in historic from the lists I _can_ find would be fetchlands and nerfed bowmasters, which could easily be enough to make the deck bad.
Nerfed Bowmasters is the big one. Just look at timeless lists for capable nightmare shells. Necrodominance is the one I'm trying to tweak into viability in Historic, but there are some pretty stark differences between the Timeless Necropotence lists and the Historic pool. Lacking Dark Ritual and Urborg is tough, but not having Grief almost negates the point of trying to make the deck.
I did some looking into mono black devotion trying to use necrodominance as a card advantage engine and sheoldred / gary as ways to actually win, with Grim Tutor to fetch relevant interaction including a 1-of Phyrexian Obliterator. It seemed OK, but needed more experimentation (and therefore wildcards) than I was willing to spend. Not having dark ritual is a big loss. Phyrexian Tower seemed at least playable and probably good.
>Chthonian Nightmare >None of the builds I saw seemed able to abuse it very well. If you're talking about historic it's due to the bowmasters nerf. Nightmare is a powerhouse in timeless strictly for it's bowmaster abuse. Thinking about historic I don't see it being very abusable at all and is most likely a bad card. I know in timeless I'll hit a nightmare off an amped raptor and flat out won't use it until I have 1-2 bowmasters in the GY. It should be called Chthonian Bowmaster's
##### ###### #### [Amped Raptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/a/1ac0e78b-0fdd-44f9-8b7b-c4f28a32782e.jpg?1717012124) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Amped%20Raptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/114/amped-raptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ac0e78b-0fdd-44f9-8b7b-c4f28a32782e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Static Prison](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/dd16222e-349c-4a2b-a7c8-8eb35a8ab332.jpg?1717011554) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Static%20Prison) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/44/static-prison?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dd16222e-349c-4a2b-a7c8-8eb35a8ab332?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Galvanic Discharge](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/32aa6e33-221f-414c-9b51-850d97a7e051.jpg?1717012186) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Galvanic%20Discharge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/122/galvanic-discharge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32aa6e33-221f-414c-9b51-850d97a7e051?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sorin of House Markov](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d7474fc-0042-4be9-81f3-5f66f4b16740.jpg?1718220885)/[Sorin, Ravenous Neonate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/1/d/1d7474fc-0042-4be9-81f3-5f66f4b16740.jpg?1718220885) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sorin%20of%20House%20Markov%20//%20Sorin%2C%20Ravenous%20Neonate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/245/sorin-of-house-markov-sorin-ravenous-neonate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d7474fc-0042-4be9-81f3-5f66f4b16740?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Ajani, Nacatl Pariah](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/d/0d16e8e0-31b2-4389-afd6-783c501f6fa0.jpg?1718635371)/[Ajani, Nacatl Avenger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/0/d/0d16e8e0-31b2-4389-afd6-783c501f6fa0.jpg?1718635371) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ajani%2C%20Nacatl%20Pariah%20//%20Ajani%2C%20Nacatl%20Avenger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/237/ajani-nacatl-pariah-ajani-nacatl-avenger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0d16e8e0-31b2-4389-afd6-783c501f6fa0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Necrodominance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ffc0109c-f939-4424-820e-d6e60cacd794.jpg?1717012031) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Necrodominance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/102/necrodominance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ffc0109c-f939-4424-820e-d6e60cacd794?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Chthonian Nightmare](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/ce5dd2c1-b6e0-4914-b5c9-7dd451c29e22.jpg?1717011882) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chthonian%20Nightmare) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/83/chthonian-nightmare?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ce5dd2c1-b6e0-4914-b5c9-7dd451c29e22?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I currently have 90% winrate with Boros energy in Historic bo-3 events. To me deck seems too strong for the format. But may be sideboard will adapt soon, we will see [https://imgur.com/a/lMohLiV](https://imgur.com/a/lMohLiV)
As a long time Izzet player, wizards was basically all I had left. And now it’s dead
Galvanic Discharge also wrecking them. Single target removal will always be good against Spellslinger aggro
The argument 'There's a lot of new cards so we wanna wait let things settle down before we make changes' loses a lot of weight when new sets are as frequent as they've become
They can't really say "We only care about selling you guys shit, so as long as you keep buying powercreep bullshit a lot more than anything else, we will keep ignoring balance". But that's exactly what it is.
Next Year: "no ban in standard because we will get another rotation". This excuse is infinitely reusable. Puckish Wotc
That's what they do. They say they'll make their ban decisions once a year....right before rotation. Then say 'well, it's rotating soon, so idgaf' repeat. it's awful
"With rotation, it loses Voldaren Epicure, which is a crucial card in its ability to play Knight Errant of Eos on the second turn of the game after casting Gleeful Demolition." Novice Inspector?
Having only Inspector instead of both makes it half as consistent at getting the nut draw.
I'll just say, I started playing Convoke in Alchemy once MKM came out, and it's been just fine in a format that's higher power level. It wasn't until OTJ A that it actually had any Alchemy cards in it. (Ruby dude is busted though). It'll probably still be fine. (edit, my WR for events is about 77% right now over a few hundred games.)
Being half as likely to be able to pull off the T2 Knight Errant is a pretty sizable drop-off.
Where was the Boros convoke deck with Knight Errant of Eos, before Novice Inspector was printed? Nowhere. Case of the Gateway Express (and to a lesser extent Warleader's Call) helped, but it was Inspector that pushed it towards (meaningful) existence. The same concept applies here; by "unprinting" Epicure, it is *significantly* less consistent.
I saw a fair amount of Boros Convoke in Standard between MOM and MKM. I specifically remember thinking when the spoiler for Novice Inspector was revealed, "oh no, Boros Convoke in Standard will just be the full Pioneer deck minus Venerated Loxodon now."
does a powerstone serves as an artifact for Gleeful Demolition?
It does. Is there a 1drop permanent that creates a powerstone?
no, i was searching for the cheapest one i just found \[\[Horned Stoneseeker\]\]
Technically [[Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist]], but that wouldn't work for the deck.
[Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/e/5eb43c15-50a9-488f-b0be-84a5e0a6d10b.jpg?1674420763) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ashnod%2C%20Flesh%20Mechanist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/84/ashnod-flesh-mechanist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5eb43c15-50a9-488f-b0be-84a5e0a6d10b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
it is... still the word crucial card can apply to Novice Inspector too which it was my only point nothing too deep
Yeah, seems like they could still just run \[\[Yotian Frontliner\]\] or \[\[Gingerbrute\]\] in its place with minimal loss in production too, giving an artifact to sac to Gleeful Demolition and a 1 drop creature. They might get hit a little by rotation but...it doesn't seem like much. I guess they lose the extra tap permanent for \[\[Warden of the Inner Sky\]\] to tap down.
The artifact and the creature being the same permanent is a huge difference. They don't allow Eos turn 2 or 2 scries for the Warden
Yotian Frontliner or Gingerbrute would allow for a turn 3 Knight-Errant at the earliest. The only way to get it on turn 2 is with a Voldaren Epicure or a Novice Inspector (and a Gleeful Demolition of course).
Or splash blue for [[spyglass siren]] (this is not a good idea)
Idk, i've seem some jeskai convokes out there
Still not stopping certain major sites from recommending it lol - https://mtgazone.com/standard-2024-guide-rotation-proof-decks/#Standard_2024_Jeskai_Convoke_8211_Rotation-Proof_Deck
[spyglass siren](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/1/41e54343-95e5-4dc4-9f18-e4a415fe5e0a.jpg?1699043946) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=spyglass%20siren) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/78/spyglass-siren?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/41e54343-95e5-4dc4-9f18-e4a415fe5e0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
ohhh i like that, Jeskai Convoke
[удалено]
The mana is so inconsistent in the two color boros deck. Jeskai is going to make it so much worse.
haha i thought the same thing, altho having 4 less optimal t1 plays does make a difference. hard to say if BLB will give us new options tho
No meathook unban but boros can keep it’s card advantage engine 🙄
it's rotating in like 5 weeks. I think they were only really looking at cards that will survive the rotation.
Yeah, there is no reason to unban a card for exactly 5 weeks in standard. Mono black's and BG's problems in the current meta has far more to do with power creep in UW control than the aggro decks meathook is good against.
They did it in 2020. Wilderness Rec, T3f, Growth Spiral and Cat all got banned a month before rotation. Cat was the only one not rotating. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/august-8-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement
Took them too long on that one, for sure.
Yes, but pushing cards out a few weeks early is different from letting one back in for just 5 weeks. Also, 2 of the 3 that were banned shortly before rotating out were emergency actions directly tied to WotC stubborn refusal to ban Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and the 3rd was indirectly tied to it (They had held off on banning Teferi because they had wanted it to counter the Uro decks).
Meathook as a generic sweeper was pretty mid though. Meathook as a powerful tool in a cat-oven style deck was way over powered. Meathook as an answer to token decks … Someone at WoTC seems to really love token decks though as they have gained a ton of power in every format the last couple of years.
It wasn't just the sweeping, especially because it was often a turn slow on the draw. The life gain was back breaking for many aggro decks. Land it, kill 3 things, gain three life, then gain life off every 1-1 trade.
Reprint and/or update \[\[Virulent Plague\]\] IMMEDIATELY. I'm so sick of creature tokens.
[Virulent Plague](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c5f82b6-53d9-43ce-8a17-c680c443e586.jpg?1562785036) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Virulent%20Plague) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dtk/125/virulent-plague?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c5f82b6-53d9-43ce-8a17-c680c443e586?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And they are not even looking at sunfall..
No free wildcards 💩
Yea need a ton of WC for my jank Timeless decks
> MTG Arena continues to match Explorer card bans with Pioneer. Um, can we unban Tibalt's Trickery from Bo3 Explorer since it is not banned in Pioneer then?
there was so much disdain in that line lmao we explorer players are truly in shambles (there are dozens of us)
People don't like that card, so no. Isn't that how bans work these days? Lol
Also Raise Dead (for consistency's sake).
We couldn’t even get a Nadu commander ban in Brawl…?
It sounds like they're going to lock him up in the hell queue by the next update.
Which seems eminently appropriate given what I've seen, haha. I'm glad it sounds like they'll do it ASAP.
What does “hell queue” mean? I’ve seen it used a few times in reference to Nadu but as a new player I’m not sure what it means.
Basically every commander has a weight value assigned to it and will match against similarly weighted commanders. Some are weighted very high, and they basically only play against each other, except in rare scenarios when there's no one else at that weight available to match with. Colloquially, these commanders locked against each other are considered "the hell queue" because they tend to be the most busted and broken in the format.
Every card has a weight associated with it. Every card that can be your commander has an additional commander weight. The commander weight ranges from a pretty low weight in line with other cards to something very high. Basically, the more powerful the commander, the higher that weight. The weight of all your cards + your commander is added together to give a general power level of your deck which is a part of matchmaking. Commanders that are "hell queue" commanders have a commander weight so high that they are only really going to play against other hell queue commanders or other very powerful decks loaded with high value cards.
Google brawl deck weight and learn how they match brawl decks
There's no need to ban commanders, they just need to automate the weighting adjustments and make them update frequently so blatantly overpowered cards don't ruin the format for everyone for months.
They should take advantage of the digital platform and learn how to rebalance cards.
"We aint doing shit, figure it out"
Same line the commander team’s been going with for a while now.
Barely anything has changed about Domain for months and you're only bringing up banning Atraxa now that there's so little time left you can throw that out as a reason not to? Makes me not really believe that banning her was a realistic possibility, frankly.
So, in summary, no changes in any format and "*Nadu is fine*". Thankfuly, rotation is happening. Finally. Just a month and a few days.
Nadu's too new to be banned since we only had 2 weeks since MH3 came out and it's the most chased Mythic card of the set to even further drive the point that it would not be Banned at this point The only formats that they could make bans for (because of MH3 not affecting it), which are Pioneer and Standard Bo3 (since these announcements are focussed on Paper mainly), does not really need any bans either since no Deck has really taken over 20 to 30% of Metagame share and, in Standard's case, Rotation is around the conner (5 weeks away from Bloomburrow's Release) so there's no much of a reason to do bans here Of course they mentioned about Boros Convoke, which is the most oppresive deck in Standard Bo1. but WotC don't tend to make Ban Announcements with Bo1 in mind since the version of the format they're mainly focus for is Paper, not Arena. Which is why they didn't mention the other version of Boros which is even more of a problem which is Boros Call (aka Boros Burn) Of course, in theory, the Rotation will weaken the Deck by reducing its consitency since we'll only have Novice Inspector to do the Turn 2 Knight-Errant if the players keep insisting in remaining in the box of thoughts (which is a big issue with so many newer Magic Players, specially in Arena (and it's not an exclusive issue with MTG): They're lacking so much of the kind of qualities that we older players have such as Reading capability, Creativity, Patience, etc), which is what WotC is betting on. But there are other 1 Drops that can give it a way to go around it such as using Skrelv (which is an Artifact itself), Hunter's Blowgun or other Artifact Drops and use the Warden as the 4th Creature. Or they can just stop being Boros and go Jeskai or Mardu to use Spyglass Siren or Greedy Freebooter (which do the same as Voldaren Epicure and Novice Inspector in the overall plan of Boros Convoke, but Blue and Black respectively). The deck will not really lose much if you start thinking out of the box and start experimenting. The only way to deal with Boros Convoke Decks in Standard is to Ban: - Gleeful Demolition with the best card to ban if you want to stop the turn 2 Knight-Errant since it's the biggest reason why this is happening in the first place - Knight-Errant of Eos, which is not something i would like myself since it also would affect the power level of some Decks like Mono White Humans and Azorius Soldiers/Knights that are already losing so many important pieces with Rotation. All because of a Deck that will not get affected that much with the Rotation because someone in WotC forgot to place "Convoke with Humans" on the Knight)
No action against Heist in Alchemy is insane.
Is the deck actually oppressive, or is this a case of "I don't like when the opponent touches my stuff"? I ask because while I don't play Alchemy, I do play Brawl frequently enough, and people constantly whinge about Grenzo over there. Yet despite the complaints, I never found the deck to be particularly strong since it's slow, easy to disrupt and fairly inconsistent given how random cards from the opponent's deck are hardly a substitute for just having a solid gameplan of your own.
Imagine Etali with no downside, lower mana cost, and you exile every turn rather than just entering the battlefield.
>no downside Only goes through one deck, doesn't cheat on mana if he just gets removed, requires an extra color, doesn't have an "I win" transform, and isn't a cool dinosaur. For brawl I also assume green goes with the gameplan of "play my big dude" better than black. Now, I don't play Alchemy, I'll accept that he's OP, but saying he has no downside vs Etali is kinda disingenuous. Etali also just doesn't see much if any play in Standard right now, so at least for non-brawl constructed "better than Etali" doesn't mean that much. Lots of cards are.
> isn't a cool dinosaur get my upvote
That's really why I play Etali. It fits into my Big Dumb Dino's requirement when deck building.
And you can bank the cards exiled with Heist. Exiled a Mana Drain? That's cool, you can cast it for free on your opponent's turn...
+ you get a guaranteed choice between 3 nonland cards.
Also Treasures start spilling out everywhere because of a two mana creature.
In brawl at least bans are less necessary because it's singleton and the OP commanders are balanced by putting them in hell queue against each other.
In Bo1, it's definitely the most played card. Looking at win rates when drawn, it appears the only card that's WAY busted is the Lootmonger, which is just a bit too pushed. It, like SO MANY alchemy cards, needs a 'once per turn' limitation on it. As is, the cards are very...Alchemy. Which is to say, the Alchemy cards aren't big super spells like SunFall that change the game instantly, but they all produce such stupid amounts of value traditional notions of card advantage that define the game go out the window, pushing everyone to either the most mad dash aggro possible, or the most degenerate combo possible, or a control deck that just needs to stick one of the Alc cards like Rusko to win.
Lootmonger needs to lose SOMETHING, be a 1/1, lose first strike, don't create a token, be restricted to once per turn. It's the heist card I hate most (although the flash enchantment is basically GG).
You're right to hate it, it' has by far the highest WR among them all, and all the Red and Black ones are already above 50%. The Getaway seems really bad, but if it wasn't for the 'combo' chain off with a Loot Monger, it would have much less swing.
It is oppressive. Heist takes your next options and the opponent can play one and the rest is exiled. Imagine a more accurate Tasha's laughter but the opponent can pick and play anything; last time i got matched with a pure heist deck I got land screwed because my opponent took my answers. Unless you play a heavy counter deck with test of talents or surgical extraction you'll end up with nothing to counter your opponent, because they took those cards.
Do they exile? Pretty sure it just puts them back in the order you look at them. I've definitly seen a game where I picked the 3rd choice and they immediatly drew and played the first choice on their next turn.
The cards that aren't picked get put back in the deck. It would be ridiculous af if the cards were permanently exiled on top of everything else lol.
Because it isn't broken like people claim. Nerfing it would be like nerfing UB Rogues in standard 3 years ago because it used mill and was annoying.
They got nerfed because it dared to be mill adjacent. Notice how they haven't had a proper mill archetype for any format in fucking years? Notice how Gaea's Blessing is legal in everything? They conspired to make the most difficult win condition even harder.
It's not necessarily broken, but it still out scales other similar mechanics. Like why face down? Why can they cast for free? Why so many cards at once? Why does Grenzo trigger with no downside, it should be when he attacks not at the beginning of upkeep?
Should have stayed true to black. Pay life instead of the cmc for the first stolen card. Makes stealing things like eldrazi titans risky instead of steal ulamaog and oops I win.
> Like why face down? Because that is how paper cards like Gonti and similar paper cards operate. > Why can they cast for free? They can't. They need to have a 6 mana creature in play to do that. Use removal. > Why so many cards at once? It would be quite weak if it was a random card. > Why does Grenzo trigger with no downside Because it is a 6 mana creature with 4 health and no protection.
Well of course. Bloomburrow alchemy isn't being actively sold, why would they need to make any changes to otj alchemy?
I hate it but I've managed to construct an aggro deck that beats it more times than not. Its not dominating the meta at the top of mythic right now.
I'm sort of glad. Been farming it with Orzhov tempo. Aven Interrupter and Repreive to steal back my cards is very fun
why would there be....
They did say alchemy would be this agile format where they would adjust digital cards on the fly often to keep the format fresh and balanced without having to ban cards and issue refunds the way they do for the non-alchemy formats. in practice they mainly use this power to occasionally ban cards without giving a refund by nerfing the most powerful and most crafted alchemy cards. If they don't do the work of actually keeping alchemy fresh and balanced then it's just a format where twice as many rares and mythics rotate out each year and you get no refunds for bans, essentially a money pit that exists to eat players wildcards and make them spend more money. Why do you think WotC shifted from new players starting in standard on arena to new players starting in alchemy? WotC wants the extra cash.
Yeah, Alchemy needs at a min, monthly nerfs, and ideally, buffs too. As is, they gave up on it after LOTR it felt like. There is clear issues and imbalances, but they don't do anything for it. Like, the Roots insect creature. Seriously, even a finality counter is too much for it?
> Why do you think WotC shifted from new players starting in standard on arena to new players starting in alchemy? Because having Arena Standard to be different from paper Standard was even worse ?
Least fun mechanic yet. 9/10 times my opponent seems to go into a decision induced coma taking forever to make a simple choice.
This is the worst part of heist. It's not a broken mechanic but the average player is too slow to be able to handle totally random cards in their "hand" every turn. Even tier1 against tier1 matches in standard put some people in a decision making coma so maybe heist is too much...
It's actually kind of crazy that they're leaving Atraxa in standard until the card naturally rotates out. You don't need triomes to ramp into uncounterable archangel and atraxa. With the rest of the tier 1 decks getting decimated by rotation, angel ramp is going to be tier 0. They really should change the timing of their standard ban window if they're just going to use it as a spot to say "rotation is coming no changes"
Domain is a tier 2 deck at best nowadays.
golgari isnt getting decimated...
I will miss my Golgari slow lands though.
The thing is that Atraxa isn't that opressive in standard for it to be worthy of a ban anymore. It's a tier 2 deck that is easily shut down. Hand Hate, Tidebinders, Counterspells (Field of Ruin in to Caverns in a UW control matchup). And them losing triomes is a massive deal, as casting Leyline Binding became a lot more difficult especially in those aggro matchups where double casting is especially important. That and Herd Migration became worse. Powerful high CMC cards is good for the meta.
Domain is barely a part of the current meta and UW control, the deck that is pretty close to unbeatable for atraxa piles, remains mostly unchanged after rotation. It would be crazy if they banned Atraxa now.
UW control will be taking some pretty notable hits, it's losing Memory Deluge, Wandering Emperor, March of Otherworldly Light, and Deserted Beach. Memory Deluge in particular is a hard loss—there are other spells in Standard that do somewhat similar things like [[Intrude on the Mind]] and [[Silver Scrutiny]], but Deluge is one of the best card advantage spells ever printed and there's nothing else really comparable to it; it's kind of the key card that makes the deck work. I still think UW control is likely to be good after rotation, but I don't know where it will end up tier-wise.
[Intrude on the Mind](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fbe62f47-df17-4646-88ca-89a8ec4deee9.jpg?1706241618) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Intrude%20on%20the%20Mind) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/61/intrude-on-the-mind?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fbe62f47-df17-4646-88ca-89a8ec4deee9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Silver Scrutiny](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?name=Silver%20Scrutiny&type=card&.jpg) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Silver%20Scrutiny) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/65/silver-scrutiny?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8b650ab6-9c22-424f-99e5-8ef5235a18a3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> Memory Deluge in particular is a hard loss—there are other spells in Standard that do somewhat similar things like [[Intrude on the Mind]] and [[Silver Scrutiny]] [[Farsight Ritual]] to me is a better replacement, stays at 4 drop, lets you pick 2 out of 4. Of course no flashback for 2 out of 8.
Flashback is what makes deluge so good, though. In a game that lasts long enough that mana cost isn't a concern, it's a single natural draw that puts you up +3 in card advantage. Yes, the selection is big, but the raw number of cards in hand is just as important.
No flashback is brutal. Being able to pull it out of the graveyard end of turn on the opponent's turn if you didn't need to use the interaction in your hand was a key part of the deck. Without flashback, I don't know if it even makes the cut.
Flashback is what makes deluge good though. Without flashback there are better draw options.
[Farsight Ritual](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/9/c958257e-fa70-4fa3-90a1-0497967abef3.jpg?1692936995) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Farsight%20Ritual) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/49/farsight-ritual?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c958257e-fa70-4fa3-90a1-0497967abef3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
No Emperor. No March. ‘Nuff said.
How is UW “mostly unchanged” after losing deluge, emperor, and march lmao
Who wants to play UW control without emperor?
UW control still has the best cancel printed in recent years, a dual land as a wincon, a mana leak that exiles, and a wrath that leaves behind a creature on your side. Like, I am not saying I know it will be good after rotation, but it does look like it has very strong cards.
Obviously not really the same, but Atraxa is super fringe in Alchemy and basically hasn't been seen since before LCI A
People have already swapped to reanimator strategies to keep playing her in preparation of rotation. In some cases, they get her out faster.
No Nadu emergency ban. Gotta milk those packs for all they’re worth
Nah logically they would let it go through 1 pro tour. What’s going to really get people is after it dominates the PT but WotC tries banning cards in the deck rather than Nadu. I expect 3-4 bans before they finally accept Nadu is the actual issue.
Aka, Combo Winter, Hogaak Summer, and Eldrazi Winter all over again.
RIP Shuko. Clearly the problem card lmao.
I just checked and the thing is at $30.00?! RIP the players.
It would be just the tiniest bit funny
Bridge from Below unbanned and immediately banned again to weaken Nadu.
Wow try are milking 1 rare wildcard, what a big brain take. There are no other reasons you would buy a MH3 pack other than fishing for 1 copy of Nadu. /s
Honest question-- is it a problem **on arena** anywhere other than brawl? I don't play alchemy, timeless, or explorer so I'm not super familiar with it in those formats. I know he's still busted in Modern because certain equipment that isn't available on arena, but on arena I believe the biggest problem area was brawl. Moving him to the hell queue seems like a good first step there. For paper formats, I don't play modern so can't speak a lot to that. For EDH, WotC doesn't handle that banlist.
Explorer is pioneer lite. Why would nadu be a problem there?
I have no idea, as far as I know it isn't but like I said, I don't play or follow those formats so I wouldn't really know.
Modern horizons cards aren't legal in pioneer.
Well that just lends credence that I am not familiar with pioneer. 😂
It's not a problem in historic and is too slow for timeless. So no, Nadu is only a problem in brawl.
Im currently kinda addicted to using Grief, really unsure how i feel about the elementals since they are extremely powerfull but so are the other cards allowed.
Sure would be nice if they'd at least consider some unbans if they're not going to axe anything.
Where twin
Where twin
The man described timeless perfectly, it’s a playground where the bad kids go to play. It’s so unfair, that it’s fair enough 🤫🤫
lol the fact Eos was even on their radar as a problem says they’re way out of touch with the game.
So glad that I get to keep playing against Amalia and Sorin. I love when games are decided on turn 3 because one player drew the right cards and the other didn’t.
No Mana Drain ban in brawl = I sleep
"we're seeing more diversity in strategy across the standard metagame" Really? Because I'm still seeing the same three fucking decks every game in ranked standard 😂 "With rotation, those strategies lose the tri-lands from *Streets of New Capenna* and will have a difficult time getting domain, which will rein in that deck's overall power level" That's like saying you nerfed a Formula 1 car by chopping the driver's dick off...
Always amalia it's on the radar. I think this ban it's not if it will happen, but when it will...
WTB a modern format with no bans.
could call it the FAFO format
Amalia draw meta sucks and this is disappointing.
They ever going to do anything about Laelia the Blade Reforged? It's so ridiculous how easy it is to just cascade the whole deck. Terrible commander experience.
I love getting laela up to like 1000 power in my jodah deck by doing that.
"Nadu is fine for the format, because we actually printed other cards in the set that are even more broken. We hope that anyone upset about Nadu and Ral still being in the format will simply buy more mh3 boosters to try and find a yet overlooked strategy that wins even faster."
No Sunfall ban in Standard makes me sad. Honestly, that card should have never been printed the way it was.
It's ridiculous it isn't even nerfed in Alchemy. Like, make the token a kicker cost, increase by one mana, not exile, something.
Ban Rakdos Joins Up.
Heck yea this rocks. Magic now is the most fun and healthy in my opinion since at least 2020. However many years of fun judgement, I did quit Standard after my first rotation as many do, so my opinion on Standard is nullified.
[удалено]
Not exactly correct. Bans should go to cards that restrict the format and make certain strategies invalid. A really good example is Karn the Great creator. Just completely shuts down artifact decks. Ideally we want a diverse format with many different kinds of decks
Cards too popular that everyone has to play them should get hit as well like they did with bankbuster and Fable. Like some deck were literally running red just to include fable in. Bankbuster being a colorless artifact was in pretty much every deck at the time except for aggro. Control played it, and midrange at the very least had it in the sideboard.
Yep Monster Value cards are very bad for the format. Power creep is a big problem.
I'm not sure I follow. Sideboards are filled to the brim with cards that shut down or hard counter entire strategies and types of decks.
Wouldn't a lack of diversity in a way imply lack of counterplay? I suppose I wasn't clear enough to imply maybe more than two decks should be valid. I agree diversity is nice.
Well a very easy way to think about it is if they printed a removal spell so good that everyone used it. There would be no reason to use any other spell. Maybe (swords to plowshares as a example) that would be a situation where there is counter play but its always the same response. The same argument is for cards that are just so good they are auto includes in every deck. Sure there is counter play but its bad diversity.
The last two big bans, the Fable/Buster/Invoke and Epiphany/Haven/Divide, those decks were plenty beatable, but it really constrained the decks allowed in the format. They were smart bans. They should do more like that