MTG thread

Would have been interesting to see how the PT went if they had only banned Emrakul. Maybe there would have been like 6 or 7 Esper aggro decks and they saved us from that.

Kuro said:

I doubt you'll ever see a JTMS unban, for purely PR reasons. Regardless of its strength or lack thereof. They also just re-banned Golgari Grave Troll, so they got burned pretty hard by at least one unban

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Yeah, you're probably right about Jace. But Bitterblossum had some real bad PR at one point too, and that being unbanned was a non issue.

The bad PR on bitterblossom isnt half as bad as JTMS is/was. i highly doubt JTMS will get unbanned unless they just have no idea how to make control relevant otherwise.

These standard bannings are very confusing to me. I can understand the emrakul banning from a player experience POV, but the others seem a little over board. Even if copter was everywhere, there are good anti-artifact tools available in kaladesh block. It might have been everywhere if they left it alone, but its not like there wouldnt be tons of different decks viable.
Im probably not articulating it well, but copter feels like a really card that compliments other deck ideas, rather then the basis for a broken deck.. and that seems fine. If it dominated the PT then i could see banning it after. Just feels weird to see it banned so soon after it came out and it wasnt oppressively broken.

But, i can at least understand their logic if they were afraid those 2 cards would overshadow any new aether revolt deck ideas. Reflector mage though? really?

These changes are all fine but what I really don't want is to get a couple months in and see Electro Static Pummeler and Felidar Guardian get the axe as Wizards become more aggressive with their balancing. This isn't Hearthstone. People don't get to disenchant Smuggler's Copter for 100% value and move on. Given how infrequent Standard bans are (last ones were Jace and Stoneforge I think?) that's a bit of an expectation that cards aren't going to get sidelined unless they are really wrecking up the joint and the format is unhealthy.

Feels weird to ban Copter when Fatal Push is literally 2 weeks away.

The Reflector Mage ban is just making sure the grenade gets as much splash damage as possible, since it hits U/W Flash, Panharmonicon, and the new Saheeli Rai+Felidar Guardian deck.

I'm with Arbitrary. They added a 2nd ban announcement date 5 weeks post-pro tour. Makes me a little nervous.

Well, it's not like they were banning things all over the place when the announcements were every month.

Banning out the only standard deck that plays Chandra should drop her a couple of bucks for a little while.

Also, amused by Gideon making it through this unscathed when he has frequently been half the field.

Arbitrary said:

These changes are all fine but what I really don't want is to get a couple months in and see Electro Static Pummeler and Felidar Guardian get the axe as Wizards become more aggressive with their balancing. This isn't Hearthstone. People don't get to disenchant Smuggler's Copter for 100% value and move on. Given how infrequent Standard bans are (last ones were Jace and Stoneforge I think?) that's a bit of an expectation that cards aren't going to get sidelined unless they are really wrecking up the joint and the format is unhealthy.

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Yea, this. I even went and reviewed the decklists of the last few big events, thinking maybe I just hadn't been paying attention. The meta game looks more robust then it has for quite awhile. B/G delirium seemed to show up the most, but even then it's best showing was like 4 versions in a top 8, and in others it was 1-2 at most. That's close to oppressive, so banning emrakul at that oint makes the most sense. Yet, I'm seeing everyone say UW flash is the 'best' deck, or marvel is the 'best' deck.. then you add in W/R and mardu vehicles, and all the tier 1.5 decks like zombies, UW panharmonicon, etc.. and you are already at double the amount of viable decks as during ravnica/theros standard when nothing got close to being banned.
With the new tools coming out in aether revolt, I'm really surprised to see a card from kaladesh getting the axe. Yes, it was in a ton of lists, but that's the nature of making a good colorless card, it can go in everything.
There's good artifact hate, vehicle hate, and great creature removal coming in this set. I would have given the meta a chance to solve that specific problem on their own for one more PT.

In other words, ban Emrakul and then one (not both) of smuggler's copter or reflector mage. Probably reflector mage, since it has the least amount of time left in standard anyways. If there's 32 copies of smuggler's coptor in the top 8 of the PT, then ban it in 5 weeks.

But smuggler's copter made planeswalkers less viable, and planeswalkers are marquee cards that sell sets. They even had to print a Heart of Kiran to block it for Planeswalker decks, also mythic, of course

I do think we'll probably see a significantly more diverse standard. I doubt "jeskai twin" is really going to go near being oppressive, since there's not only widely played cards that stonewall it (instant speed creature removal, shock coming in which gets rid of saheeli and breaks up the combo, or just going fast enough that they don't get to durdle to 6 lands and win), but brutal specific meta (Authority of the Consuls).

Kuro said:

But smuggler's copter made planeswalkers less viable, and planeswalkers are marquee cards that sell sets.

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Emrakul got banned because if they didn't the Marvel decks would crush everything and very little from Revolt would have been relevant aside from better energy producers for Marvel and the rare counterspell for whatever flavor of U-based deck popped up to fight Marvel.

Copter and reflector mage were mostly market research bans. Standard attendance is in the toilet, they got absolutely slaughtered on their "rate standard 1-10" Twitter poll, and I'm sure their surveys aren't any better. Little Timmy or whatever he's called that shows up to FNM twice a month hated both of those cards with a passion, so here we are.

Still not sure how I feel about it. I'd rather Revolt have released and let things shake out for a month or two I think, but I'm mostly fine with this as is? I won't miss copter being shoe-horned in to every deck because it was so ridiculously pushed you couldn't not run it. Reflector Mage wasn't really warping the format, but goddamn if that card didn't suck dick to play against and it really put some hurt on trying to play most midrange/ramp type creature strategies. There's also the fact that it's just a shittily made card and there's no in-game way to track what got reflected and when it can be played again; you saw that shit getting missed constantly at SCG opens and other such high level events even, so can't imagine it went super great for FNM play.

That said, RIP my copter value.

G'luck to everyone at their various prereleases this weekend.

Kuro said:

G'luck to everyone at their various prereleases this weekend.

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Seems like a pretty fun set. Less aggressive than the 1 set format anyways.

T1: Narnam Renegade
T2: Winding Constrictor
T3: Rishkar
T4: Ridgescale Tusker

Is a very hard curve to recover from

Tusker is pretty insane. They should have just given it like Trample and made it a rare.

Remember kids, you can pool the cards from your midnight pre-release but you still have to know how to play to win. This recent YuGiOh transplant had RG with Rishkar, Rishkar's Expertise, Verduous Gearhulk and Nissa. Using all those power cards to activate Consulate Dreadnought? Not a winning strategy.

I beat him with aggressive RB. Usually not good for sealed but I had Unlicensed Disintegration and Hungry Flames to chip at life totals. All stars were Kari Zev's Expertise and Destructive Tampering. Gotta have the Falter and the Threaten.

Here was my pre release pool. Curious what deck you all would build from this:

MTG Deck: sealed pool aether revolt

I've been out of it forever, and I didn't actually map the manacurve, but I'd probably try ART/black/red (maybe a splash of 1-2 white cards). You have a no upkeep, value engine with tap to gen energy and gain +1/+1 tokens from it. You have a couple of the better seeming energy use creatures. You have an, abet expensive, recurring toolbox. A decent amount of card quality manipulation and draw. Those colors also gives you access to your removal to counter fliers and anti-artifacts.

Normally I'm a stupid green smash face type of player, but that doesn't seem to synergize with much of your artifacts.

Edit: ug, the curve on that is shit. nearly everything is 3+ with little ramp.