I'm sure by now everyone has seen the news on the front page. But I'm not paid to make that sort of assumption, so in case you missed it, the DCI has just announced a change to Type 2 banned list.
What will Standard look like now? It's definitely going to be different without Ravager at the top, but how different, and what new decks will emerge? I'll walk you through the burning questions that are on everyone's mind.
1: Is Ravager really Dead?
Yup. Dead as a doornail. If Ravager was able to survive the loss of just the artifact lands that would have been a small miracle all by itself. Surviving them without access to Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager, and the artifact lands is impossible. It's safe to say that Ravager Affinity - the deck we've all come to know and hate - has just been brutally murdered.
2: Is Tooth and Nail the new top dog?
No. If anything, Tooth and Nail takes a step backwards from where it was. Tooth was undoubtedly the best non-Ravager deck in the old type 2. In the short term that status will haunt it as people seek to fill the power vacuum created by Ravager. As the percieved new best deck in the format, Tooth will be attacked from all sides by everything from maindecked Cranial Extractions to sideboarded Sowing Salts. Can Tooth and Nail survive such vicious hate? Probably. It will even be a good tier 1 deck, but it won't dominate the format in the same way that Ravager did.
3: What is the new aggressive deck?
I'm betting on Sligh. The red deck was inexplicibly popular even with Ravager around, and with it gone the deck does nothing but get better. Suddenly Bonesplitter becomes a legitimate turn 1 play instead of just an Oxidize target. Juggernaut becomes a genuine finisher, instead of getting Relic Barriered each turn.
Red also has some of the best burn in recent memory, despite losing Shrapnel Blast fodder. The burn is what pushes Sligh over the edge, because it both removes opposing blockers (and attackers) as well as provides a method of winning in the face of cards like Vedalken Shackles and Meloku.
My second choice is the sleeper aggro deck of White Weenie. T2 white has an abundance of solid cheap creatures, and with 3 total fliers that cost 2 or less, it has more evasion than Gary Larson around a tabloid photographer. WW stands to benifit the most from Equipment becoming playable again, as it has access to the Mirrodin block "plays well with equipment" creatures such as Leonin Shikari and Auriok Glaivemaster. Umezawa's Jitte was a powerful enough card that people were risking playing it even WITH Ravager in the format, and it only gets that much more powerful when it is unlikely to meet a turn 3 Viridian Shaman.. WW benifits tremendously from the sudden playability of Equipment, with cards like Leonin Shikari and Auriok Glaivemaster making white most poised to truely take advantage.
4: What Impact does the banning have on control decks?
This has a huge impact on control. Without the ungodly trio of a gigantic Blinkmoth Nexus, instant speed Aether Vial, and the uber rancor of Cranial Plating (ironically none of which were actually banned), Wrath of God becomes good again. There is no existing deck for it to be played in, but when combined with Pulse of the Fields and Final Judgement, one wonders if such a deck might come to exist in a world without Ravager.
More important for the pre-existing control decks is that they may now use artifacts themselves. Solemn Simulacrum will almost definitely find a way back into BG. Blue Green mages might wish to re-consider using Crystal Shard (as insane as that sounds) in a slower format to provide constant Witness recursion, or possibly drop green completely in favor of black or white.
Ironically, because all of the currently established decks (except for Tooth and Nail) benifit greatly from the addition of "new" artifacts, it may be a wise choice for control players to keep Oxidize maindecked. In a metagame where everyone is using artifacts, it's wise to have some method of killing them.
5: What relatively rogue decks (if any) are likely to emerge from the shadows in an affinity free world? Beacon Green. Without nearly as much artifact hate, it's reasonable to expect that a Blasting Station can last for more than one or two turns. This increases the consistency of the deck greatly. In addition, having the ability to churn out lots of 1/1 chump blockers makes Beacon Green a strong choice versus any of the aggro decks that will emerge.
6: Is this better for the format as a whole?
Most definitely. It's blown the entire lid off t2, and will do more to diversify the format than the entirety of Kamigawa block. That's definitely a good thing. Type 2 feels like it did after a set just rotated, with various fringe decks trying to earn thier way into the newly opened upper echelon of the format.
With all that in mind, here's a few decklists adapted for the post Ravager world to get you started on your playtesting.
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Nice article. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if equipment becomes playable. In some ways I remain skeptical, because it seems like it would mean reducing creature count, which increases the effectiveness of the enemy's creature control. Then again... Jitte is some good. :grin2:
What are your views on Mono-U control now ?
Seems like it ought to be quite strong with Affinity gone...
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MUC will rise again!! YAY!! btw, RDW will be very good... just not within the next few weeks... people have to realize that green is NOT the best color to play and stop splashing it for damn elders and reaches... after that, RDW will be near the top...
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Nice read.
I agree that T&N won't be able to step up to rule. It will try, but people will be prepared - and more importantly - will be able to disrupt it in the ways that it couldn't against ravager.
I think some monobeats will become useful again. Sleigh, MonoGreen, WW, possibly WG Aggro-Control. T2 might just be fun again.
Note: After being advised against it by my lawyers and council, I have gone ahead and posted a very contestable thought. Be warned, this statement has not been evaluated by the FFL, NSA, KGB, or FDA.
very nicely done. i'm really happy to see that - at this point - you can sit down to see any number of decks facing you down. it's an open field, and it's refreshing.
i'm personally going to make a lovely version of WW with the Jitte, and the swords of fire and ice / light and dark. and i don't have to worry about being dead on the fourth turn... unless they run a red blazing shoal, myojin of infinite rage, spark elemental deck and then it gets pretty ugly pretty quickly.
I forsee enchantments making a splash on the scene. Mono anything seems a little dangerous to me unless you run some enchantment removal in at least your sideboard. Mono red seems to be creeping up strong but a simple COP will cripple that with no red enchantment removal. Same thing with the black.
I agree with Cannibal that WW or some sort of Quick Green beatdown might be the way to go. (sideboard ench removal).
And god forbid we see a few more multi color decks out there, or decks with any color at all. (Ravager is dead:halo:, long live the colors of Magic.)
Creativity makes me want to, to ,to oh hell, steal someone else's creatures and sacrifice them for mana.
I agree with Cannibal that WW or some sort of Quick Green beatdown might be the way to go. (sideboard ench removal).
And god forbid we see a few more multi color decks out there, or decks with any color at all. (Ravager is dead:halo:, long live the colors of Magic.)
Creativity makes me want to, to ,to oh hell, steal someone else's creatures and sacrifice them for mana.
hmmm... grasshoppa, when you can steal my creatures from me and play my deck against me then you will be ready to go out into the world...
white has some nice advantage creatures that can really make a difference to how you make not only you deck, but your sideboard. for WW the Kami of False Hope is a turn one drop that can be saved as a sac if you end up facing two darksteel collosus ond turn 5. Kami of the Ancient Law -turn 2 drop ... 2/2 for 2 mana... with a great sac ability. no reason not to play with four of them. what's the worst that happens? no enchantments to kill?
now excuse me while i go put together another blinkmoth urn / mindslaver deck...
Ok I really don't get it. Ravager and co gets banned so apparently everyone can now play all those artifacts that they wanted to play but couldn't because of all the Ravager hate.
Well I don't know about you but I'm still going to be running Viridian Shamans and Oxidises because I'm going to expect to see tons of artifacts from all the people who think it's safe to run them now.
This where you differentiate the smart players from the ignorant players. Those who are smart will only play artifacts that are essential to winning with their deck(i.e. shackles in MUC with counter support). Those who are not so smart will start to run their artifacts like crazy(like janky T&N with 4 platinum angels). Hmm... dark banishing/oxidize/electrostatic bolt/echoing truth/altar's light anyone?
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I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't tested mono blue very much. Ultimately however I think it's going to depend largely on how aggressive the metagame becomes. The slower the metagame gets, the better mono blue becomes.
Sneaky: I don't really expect Big Red to stick around long. In the old type 2 it was specifically designed to pummel ravager (which it didn't really do very effectively), and not very much else. If you lose the 'pummel ravager' portion of that equation you're left with a deck that needs MAJOR changes to be competitive. It's certainly possible, but I'd be absolutely terrified heading into an unknown metagame with Big Red, so for a while at least I expect it to drop out of the metagame.
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Mono red seems to be creeping up strong but a simple COP will cripple that with no red enchantment removal.
That depends on the red deck. White has very little in the way of removal besides wrath effects. A smart sligh player could play around wrath and over-commit just enough to force damage through.
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Phyrexian Plaguelord: It's not The Rock without him.
Even though I want Sligh to become a powerhouse VERY much, I still don't think it's going to be the best deck. I've been doing some "new" metagame testing and found that MBC or a MBA (mono-black aggro) are still going to be powerhouses. Nonetheless, LONG LIVE SLIGH!
Well, this is the e-mail that I sent to Aaron Forsythe...
I have to say that I am THOROUGHLY dissappointed in the DCI. I feel that the bannings/restrictions were TOTALLY unnecessary. I remember you saying before about banning the artifact lands would be too much. Now you banned ALL of them AND Disciple and Ravager? Why? Your explanation wasn't good enough in my opinion. All I understood was "We cater to the casual players. Oh, and we wanted people to buy more CoK." Seriously, this new block sucks CoK... pun intended. As you guys said before, there will ALWAYS be a best deck. Couldn't you have let Broodstar survive? Even Krak-Clan Ironworks? KCI rolls over to counter-magic. Broodstar is beatable. Hell, I had just as much fun beating down on some Affinity with my Sligh as I did beating down on control with my Affinity. I played R/G Land Destruction at the 2004 South Regionals tournament. I played 4 Affinity decks in 11 rounds of Swiss. I ran over all of them, not having a single match loss against Affinity. That was when Clamp WAS legal. I placed 12th due to an opponent's lucky draw of 2 Sacred Ground opening hand. My name is Derek J. Fallon. Check it if you don't believe me. If Affinity had Clamp then, and I don't think it was broken, and it was VERY beatable, NOTHING you can ever say can convince me that it's unbeatable now. The same hate is present now as it was then. Just because a few people whine about it not being fun, you ban EVERYTHING? Extended is diverse, but do you really think that Orim's Chant on a stick is FUN?!?! Do you think that people running eleventy counters is fun? Do you think that playing against Mind's Desire which can go off around turn 3-4 if built right is FUN?!?! It's competitive Magic folks, wake up. If the casual players were that worried about it, they know how to fix it themselves. Hell, there was still people playing Skullclamp in casual T2. You really think they abide by the Banned/Restricted list? NO! You want to know the honest reason why T2 isn't fun? Because Onslaught kicked ass, and Kamigawa had nothing to bring to the table. No new archetypes are out because Kamigawa sucks so much right now, it's not even funny. Therefore, most of the decks are from Mirrodin because there's almost nothing competitive in Kamigawa. I bet if you brought back Onslaught, Affinity would get raped left, right, upside down and sideways.
What about all those Affinity players? What about them having fun? Has it not occured to you the mass quantity of people that quit because of this? They were having fun. Now that they've poured over $100 into their deck to get those Ravagers and Glimmervoids, half the deck is banned. It wouldn't be so bad if Ravager, Disciple, or Plating went. But did the Artifact lands really have to go? No. They were far from broken. What about the whole spiel with Rebels? You only banned Lin Sivvi. What about Goblins? Those were almost TOO good at the time. What about Tog? That was just retarded. What about Fires? It was rediculous! But when Affinity comes out, all of a sudden it's not ok to have a good deck anymore? What the hellk do you want us to play? U/B/G/R Samurai? U/R Splice? PLEASE! Kamigawa is the worst freaking block I've ever seen. In fact, I'd rather play Homelands right now. That was more FUN and didn't suck nearly as much.
Now the entire Affinity archetype isn't playable at all, as well as KCI, Cog Control, and Artificer's Intuition combo decks. You know why Affinity was so good? It just had synergy. That's it. Judging from R&D and the DCI lately, you guys don't have a clue as to what that means. It also had Modular, which drove it further. It became resiliant to artifact hate by just making another guy bigger. What happened to just making the deck more "balanced" instead of obliterating it? I thought it was already almost balanced, and this is coming from a non-Affinity player. You screwed SEVERAL decks. Now Type 2 is even less fun before. All you're going to see is U/G Meloku, Tooth and Nail, Sligh, and U/W Control. God forbid should Aggro ever win a Worlds tournament. I'm sick of seeing Control on top all the time.
What is the deal with cutting out the iconic cards out of Magic now? On top of the bannings, you guys are cutting out the cards that defined the game. Counterspell, Force Spike, Mana Short, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Duress, Engineered Plague, Earthquake, Hurricane, Pillage, Shatterstorm (Where the hell was this during Mirrodin? You guys said you made hosers in CoK.. I didn't see any. Any that were made were unplayable because you suck at designing cards apparantly. Imi Statue? Samurai of the Pale Curtain? Those weren't hosers. They sucked beyond belief. Where the hell was Energy Flux?), Swords to Plowshares, Armageddon, Karplusan Forest, Adarkar Wastes, Brushland, Underground River, Sulfurous Springs... Where the hell are they? A bunch of those have been around since Alpha, and all of a sudden you get a wild hair and decide not to print them? Do you honestly think beginners are that stupid that those cards aren't understandable? Rarity has nothing to do with it. YOU PRINTED WRATH OF GOD AND ARMAGEDDON IN PORTAL FOR GOD SAKES! Those sets were STRICTLY for beginners. You had the experts chasing after those cards. If your reason for not printing the pain lands was because of rarity, then look at that and then give us a real reason. Rare cards gives beginners something to work up to. You shouldn't just be able to join and get crap like Black Lotus and a foil playset of Wrath of God right away. By learning, playing, and winning tournies, those cards become retardedly easy to come by. I've had like 6 different playsets of Birds go through my hands, and I've been playing for 4 years. Hell, after the first 3 months of starting, I built an Opposition deck during Invasion/Odyssey/7th Type 2. Guess what? I WON! 7th edition was the best damn core set you've ever had. It was the foundation for the most diverse Type 2 format I've ever seen. Why? Because every color had good cards for the first time. I seen so many decks during that time period, it was awesome. You didn't go to every FNM knowing you'd either play Tooth and Nail, Affinity, or some crappy U/G Meloku deck. You know why Extended is so diverse? It's because of 7th edition. Most of the best decks came from that era when it was Type 2 legal. Hell, that was my favorite Type 2 era. It got screwed up when you came out with 8th, which is by far the worst. Blue got shafted, Black sucks, White is rediculous.. the only thing that makes it playable is Wrath, Red was ok, and Green only had Birds. Now you're screwing it up with 9th too? Why is it all of a sudden you can't print Birds and Elves together when they've been in print together since Alpha? And you wonder why nobody buys core sets anymore. They suck. PLEASE REPRINT SOME GOOD CARDS!
This was way out of hand. I can't believe you guys would stoop this low just to make a "statement". You know what that statement conveys to a lot of the serious tournament players? DCI and R&D are a bunch of jokers who don't know how to do their jobs. I have lost all confidence in you guys as of late, and I am, and many people I know are more than ready to quit Magic now. I can have about 100 people send you e-mails if you like. I mean, crappy sets, rediculous bannings, and pathetic excuses? What is there left? Magic has gone straight to hell. I hate playing now. You know what your bannings, sub-par core sets, and non-creative blocks have led to? Magic not being fun as a whole. Now people have to worry about building good decks because the DCI might axe the whole deck now, not just a card or two. That's what your statement conveyed. Thanks a lot.
If you were going to ban anything, the Disciple could've gone... Maybe the Ravager or Plating. But for God sakes.. why did the lands have to go too? 7 COMMONS! You killed 5 decks, and hindered several others. Please, undo this mess that you have only made bigger.
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My weakness is I care too much.
"For every heart that finds a love, there is a heart that cries.
For every dream that is re-born there is a dream that dies.
For every day in sunlight, there is a day of rain.
For every hour filled with joy there is an hour of pain.
For every smile upon a face there is a tear to cry.
For every fond hello we say there is a sad goodbye."
i sooo just sat here trying to figure out where i wanted to start with a reply / retort to the post from Burning Rage... i just don't know where to start... i guess it just makes me mad when i hear the tired complaint "the new set is no good, the old set was so much better" crap... people were saying that when mirriodin came out, and now those people are whinning about commons being banned from the set. if they had banned rares from the set they would have complained about all of the money that they spent... (oh... and concerning the $100 that some folks spent to get Ravagers and Glimmervoids - Wizards doesn't care about that. they care about the health of the format. the amount of money that you choose to spend buying singles is not important to Wizards. if it were important to them they would sell single cards.)
where was shatterstorm during mirrodin block? i don't know if you were playing magic when antiquities came out (i was,it was the first expansion that i bought.) but everybody HATED that card. who wants to try to build a card with new cards when there is ONE card that hoses everyone of the new cards.
so... you hate playing magic now, and they don't know how to design cards.
enjoy playing Pokemon.
you (and the "they killed magic! i'll never play again!" attitude) will not be missed.
So it's ok to play **** like Flashfires which kills half of White Weenie? It's ok to play Boil when it kills half of control? Wizards better care about how much people spend, because if people keep losing money through incopotent bannings, they'll start losing players left and right. So in short: shut the **** up you fruitcake. Don't go around criticizing people for their opinions.
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So it's ok to play Flashfires which kills half of White Weenie? It's ok to play Boil when it kills half of control?
flashfires was not printed in a white oriented set.
boil was not printed in a set that revolved around the color blue.
hose cards all suck in my opinion. i have always disliked them, but there was something particularly offensive about Wizards giving us a new expansion (antiquities) and then giving one color (red) a way to completely hose anyone trying to play with the new cards.
you will note that Wizards does not make any more of the cards that hose specific expansions. this is for the exact reason that i was trying to make.
Burning Rage, that was amazing.
I've never agreed with anything about magic more in my life.
When Shining Shoal is the best white card in the format, something is terribly terribly wrong.
Thank you for that very interesting read and I hope they at DCI take it seriously.
burning rage: i agree with you that wizards went to far with their bannings, personally i think that just the disciple would have been enough to slow raffinity down to a decent level, after all the disciple usually does about half the damage the deck deals and therefore cutting it would make the deck that much slower.
However whats done is done and i wouldn't dream of quiting magic over it, just like i wouldn't have dreamed of quiting after the combo winter tolarian acedemy etc. bannings. Sure my ravagers and glimmervoids aren't worth as much any more but they're still good cards and versions of raffinity are being played in extended, vintage and legacy so its not as if you can't use them at all.
Also what's this idiocy about control being ontop all the time? after all in recent times there's always been a nice mixture: type 2 with oddessey had UG madness as a strong aggro deck and psychatog as a strong control deck, type 2 with onslaught had goblin bidding as a strong aggro deck and astral slide as a strong control deck, type 2 with mirrodin has raffinity as an insane aggro deck and then tooth n nail which is more of a beat down or combo(abunas/angel, vampire/triskelion) deck than a control deck. so really the only time in the last few years when either aggro or control rained supreme was right now with raffinity.
Raffinity is a Control/Aggro deck.
Tooth and Nail is Control Deck.
Raffinity can Aggro, then fall back on the Deciple+Ravager combo for the last few points of damage.
Affinity is, or was, by no means a control deck. Control decks play controlling, aka reactive cards: cards that mess with the opponent's board/hand/spells. Affinity played zero reactive card. And yes it often ended with combo, but combo is absolutely not the same as control, I suggest you look up what the words mean. TaN, I'd also not call a control deck but that doesn't fit in the normal "boxes" of aggro/control/combo.
Now, about Burning Rage's long post: I agree about the overkill. Banning Disciple was necessary, and I'd say banning Ravager would be correct also; it's replacable but replacing it does make the deck a bit weaker. Lands shouldn't have gone, it killed more than one deck completely which is stupid. His "fun" explanation was indeed bull****. Few competitive decks are fun to play against, after all, they're meant to win a lot and losing generally isn't fun; especially losing against a deck you know beforehand exactly how it's going to kill you. I absolutely don't see how losing to Affinity is that much worse than losing to a burn spell when playing against an aggro deck like Sligh, or losing to a combo deck or a control/lock deck like ScepterChant you mentioned. So far I completely agree.
Kamigawa block sucks, that is true as well. Champions was very weak for a base set, and Betrayers has only a few borderline playable cards and with that is one of the worst sets to come out since long... Your rant against the "stupid" decks from Kamigawa, like UG Meloku etc is kind of pointless though, as those decks do play some of the few good cards from Champions (witness, elder, meloku). Although I do hate the fact that Hinder is now considered a good card. Some point where you are wrong though: the field IS going to be more diverse - more than just the decks you mentioned - but that could have been accomplished by just weakening Affinity instead of killing it, too. Also your "I hate control decks are always on top" rant is pointless too, it's definitely not true as in the former type two Goblins were the best deck, and in general last years there has been a decent balance between aggro and control. Also this balance is not so easy to predict when releasing cards, so give them a break in this regard.
Finally, you go on a not-very-related rant about Eighth Edition; well what can I say, it's just true. 8E sucked and judging from what Wizards said so far it looks like 9th won't be much better. 7th WAS awesome, although I didn't realise it so much at the time. It contained a lot of cards that were the base of many decks, and while I do agree with WotC that the base set should not be stagnant and not all staples should be reprinted in every base set, it doesn't make sense either to cut almost all the good cards from the base set without adding new cards of similar power level. Now Eighth offers almost nothing to constructed Magic (Birds, Wrath, Mana Leak, Naturalize, City of Brass, Pyroclasm, Savannah Lions, Urzatron, Plow Under, err... Bribery? Obliterate? Vine Trellis? Phyrexian Arena? About 15 cards out of 350 are just playable... I don't want to do this count for 7th!)
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
Many Raffinity builds run Mana Leak, Terror, Oxidize and Viridian Shaman.
Also, Arcbound Ravager is a very controling card. It has the ability to fizzle targeted removal spells, as well as the potential to get past any board position you could have.
I realize that my rant about 8th edition was kind of random, but I had just cause. If the core set was better, and had more power cards like 7th, the format would be silly good right now. 7th Edition FORCED diversity. Every color had good cards, there's no 2 ways about it. With 8th edition on the other hand, it's very debatable. There are only a few playable cards. After looking at 7th at a closer glance, almost the whole set was playable. Maybe about 1/3 of it was constructed tourney worthy, but the rest didn't completely suck like 8th does. The hyped up card was Underworld Dreams... We know that's tech against Tooth and Nail. They were called CORE sets for a reason. I don't think we should have to rely on a card pool of 6 sets for a deck. If the core sets weren't meant to be playable, then **** FNM. Just play block, as it seems that's all that's getting play lately. As long as Mirrodin is around, most of the decks around the tourney scene will be from Mirrodin block. There is very few playable cards in CoK. Wizards just has to learn that. That's where the problem with diversity is. CoK is just horrible.
Also, as a side note, Slide beat the pants off of Goblins. Anything with COP: Red or Exalted Angel trampled over the little red men. To put it simply, they got spanked by control. U/G Madness was Aggro/CONTROL, control being a key word in there. Tog was just stupid.
In short, control has more wins at Worlds than aggro could dream of. I am a control player, but even I'm sick of control. By taking out Affinity, Wizards took out the best chance of an aggro deck to finally score a win. It was U/W Control that won last year if you remember.
First lets get a few things traight. Raffinity was an aggro deck that happen to contain a combo. Second tooth and nail is a combo deck that happens to have used its open spaces for control elements due to the fact that it was played in a aggro environment. If it was a control enviroment tooth would have been playing plow and creaping mold instead of oxidize and shaman. Third UG madness was a aggro/disruption deck. Counterspells are disruption spells not control spells. They deny the opponet of tempo and hand not board. The are a common element of UW control for thier disuptive ablity (ability to attack control). They alow you to beat other control decks in a control heavy environment.
Now that the misconsception are out of the way I totally disagree with Burning Rage's initial rant to the DCI. Wether you like it or not, and no matter what you call it magic is not a professional sport/game. It is amature all the way. There is very little "professionalism" in magic, and the illusion that it is pro is just a marketing ploy by WotC. Which is why when attendance and sales fall they make thier move. Its all about promoting thier game. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am all for them doing whatever they can to promote the game and get high profits so they can continue to bring me more porduct.
Despite my general disagreement with Burning Rage, I do agree that the base set leaves a lot to be desired. If it has no relevance to type 2 why print it in the first place. When I started there was 1 "block" and a stand alone out (arabian nights, antiquities, legends, the dark). The staple of decks was the main set however. Now you are hard pressed to find a core card in a competative deck. This is a bad thing in my oppinion, but I do understand why they do it. To promote sales. If your deck is mostly base set with just a few splashes of the expansions then you buy fewer cards. If the expansions are weaker then the base set what is the point of buying those cards? They have to sell product to stay in buisness.
Now for those of you who do not know the history of magic let me give you a little insight. This game goes in cycles. The expansions start out weak, and grow in power with each new block untill they get to the point that people have had it with all the broken cards and things get banned. At that point they start all over with a relatively weak set that everybody complains about for being too weak. This cycle lets them sell new blocks because they get better and better most of the time, and leaves them with a dead year every so often. Again business and profit making the decisions.
Wow thats an awful lot and not a thing about the effect of the bannings. Well here is my prediction. Aggro just got the ban axe. There is not a clearly defined aggro deck to take over where ravager left off. It may be out there non the less, but in the short term I forsee a lot of tooth, a lot of control decks, and a few disruption decks thrown in to take down tooth and combo. Black is the big winner of the bannings since counters are to expensive axing blue as a possible choice for the disruption deck, and LD just is not fast enough which leaves red out. Black and its discard (which has been steadily improving in this block) look to be poised for a good run.
Raffinity is a Control/Aggro deck.
Tooth and Nail is Control Deck.
Raffinity can Aggro, then fall back on the Deciple+Ravager combo for the last few points of damage.
Ravager affinity is generally considered aggro-combo actually. Aggro decks, in the most general of terms, are ones whose primary method of winning is lots of quick cheap creatures and burn/removal to beatdown for the win. That's definately ravager. But the Disciple-Ravager "combo" kill on the end of that gives it an out that the arctypical aggro deck such as WW or UG Madness (which incidentally was just straight up aggro until it started sideboarding in extra counterspells) doesn't have. In that regard it's much more like Goblin Bidding, which is also generally regarded as aggro-combo.
Tooth and Nail is flat out combo. The easiest way to see this, is that if a Tooth and Nail resolves, the game is over. An entire deck, specifically designed to force one spell to resolve, is generally defined to be a combo deck. It also has other elements commonly associated with combo, such as the massive mana "engine" (not a true mana engine, but still), and the willingness to use incredibly bad cards (like Leonin Abunas), specifically because they are part of a combo.
Buring Rage: I agree with your part about 7th being really good, and 8th and CoK being, well, ****. I disagree with your analysis of the banning however. As a competitive player, the message I got when first reading the banning announcement was, "Despite all previous appearances, we actually DO care somewhat about competitive magic, and a deck that takes between 60 and 80 percent of the field is not healthy for competitive magic."
I agree a "fun" argument is insane. If a fun deck such as Mind's Desire or Scepter-Chant dominated the metagame the way Affinity is doing so for the next 10 days, then I'd sure as hell want something from IT banned as well.
I was told today that this kid on my team called 911 twice this morning and hung up both times. They called back and his dad answered. The reason the kid called 911? He got an erection and didn't know what to do. I wish I was making this up.
Disciple of the Vault: Gone
Arcbound Ravager: No More
The Most Broken Island Ever: Axed
Great Furnace: Banned
Vault of Whispers: AWOL
Tree of Tales: Nope
Ancient Den: Verboten
Darksteel Citadel: I'd give you 3 guesses, but I think you only need one.
What will Standard look like now? It's definitely going to be different without Ravager at the top, but how different, and what new decks will emerge? I'll walk you through the burning questions that are on everyone's mind.
1: Is Ravager really Dead?
Yup. Dead as a doornail. If Ravager was able to survive the loss of just the artifact lands that would have been a small miracle all by itself. Surviving them without access to Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager, and the artifact lands is impossible. It's safe to say that Ravager Affinity - the deck we've all come to know and hate - has just been brutally murdered.
2: Is Tooth and Nail the new top dog?
No. If anything, Tooth and Nail takes a step backwards from where it was. Tooth was undoubtedly the best non-Ravager deck in the old type 2. In the short term that status will haunt it as people seek to fill the power vacuum created by Ravager. As the percieved new best deck in the format, Tooth will be attacked from all sides by everything from maindecked Cranial Extractions to sideboarded Sowing Salts. Can Tooth and Nail survive such vicious hate? Probably. It will even be a good tier 1 deck, but it won't dominate the format in the same way that Ravager did.
3: What is the new aggressive deck?
I'm betting on Sligh. The red deck was inexplicibly popular even with Ravager around, and with it gone the deck does nothing but get better. Suddenly Bonesplitter becomes a legitimate turn 1 play instead of just an Oxidize target. Juggernaut becomes a genuine finisher, instead of getting Relic Barriered each turn.
Red also has some of the best burn in recent memory, despite losing Shrapnel Blast fodder. The burn is what pushes Sligh over the edge, because it both removes opposing blockers (and attackers) as well as provides a method of winning in the face of cards like Vedalken Shackles and Meloku.
My second choice is the sleeper aggro deck of White Weenie. T2 white has an abundance of solid cheap creatures, and with 3 total fliers that cost 2 or less, it has more evasion than Gary Larson around a tabloid photographer. WW stands to benifit the most from Equipment becoming playable again, as it has access to the Mirrodin block "plays well with equipment" creatures such as Leonin Shikari and Auriok Glaivemaster. Umezawa's Jitte was a powerful enough card that people were risking playing it even WITH Ravager in the format, and it only gets that much more powerful when it is unlikely to meet a turn 3 Viridian Shaman.. WW benifits tremendously from the sudden playability of Equipment, with cards like Leonin Shikari and Auriok Glaivemaster making white most poised to truely take advantage.
4: What Impact does the banning have on control decks?
This has a huge impact on control. Without the ungodly trio of a gigantic Blinkmoth Nexus, instant speed Aether Vial, and the uber rancor of Cranial Plating (ironically none of which were actually banned), Wrath of God becomes good again. There is no existing deck for it to be played in, but when combined with Pulse of the Fields and Final Judgement, one wonders if such a deck might come to exist in a world without Ravager.
More important for the pre-existing control decks is that they may now use artifacts themselves. Solemn Simulacrum will almost definitely find a way back into BG. Blue Green mages might wish to re-consider using Crystal Shard (as insane as that sounds) in a slower format to provide constant Witness recursion, or possibly drop green completely in favor of black or white.
Ironically, because all of the currently established decks (except for Tooth and Nail) benifit greatly from the addition of "new" artifacts, it may be a wise choice for control players to keep Oxidize maindecked. In a metagame where everyone is using artifacts, it's wise to have some method of killing them.
5: What relatively rogue decks (if any) are likely to emerge from the shadows in an affinity free world?
Beacon Green. Without nearly as much artifact hate, it's reasonable to expect that a Blasting Station can last for more than one or two turns. This increases the consistency of the deck greatly. In addition, having the ability to churn out lots of 1/1 chump blockers makes Beacon Green a strong choice versus any of the aggro decks that will emerge.
6: Is this better for the format as a whole?
Most definitely. It's blown the entire lid off t2, and will do more to diversify the format than the entirety of Kamigawa block. That's definitely a good thing. Type 2 feels like it did after a set just rotated, with various fringe decks trying to earn thier way into the newly opened upper echelon of the format.
With all that in mind, here's a few decklists adapted for the post Ravager world to get you started on your playtesting.
12 Forest
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Eternal Witness
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Kokusho, The Evening Star
4 Echoing Decay
2 Oxidize
3 Death Cloud
2 Cranial Extraction
4 Night's Whisper
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Vine Trellis
4 Sylvan Scrying
3 Reap and Sow
4 Tooth and Nail
1 Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
2 Sundering Titan
1 Leonin Abunas
1 Platinum Angel
3 Mindslaver
2 Oblivion Stone
4 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
4 Akki Avalanchers
4 Frostling
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Zo-Zu the Punisher
4 Juggernaut
2 Glacial Ray
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Magma Jet
4 Bonesplitter
15 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Devoted Retainer
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Bonesplitter
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Otherworldly Journey
1 Worship
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Wood Elves
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Fecundity
3 Eternal Witness
2 Rude Awakening
3 Plow Under
2 Echoing Courage
Now get out there and break the brand new format we've got!
Warning: spoiler conceals a moment of extreme unprofessionalism and will ruin your opinion of HKKID as an impartial author for the rest of eternity.
Na Na Na Na...
Na Na Na Na...
Hey Hey Hey...
Good Bye!
Mafia Stats
What are your views on Mono-U control now ?
Seems like it ought to be quite strong with Affinity gone...
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
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<Limited Clan>
Such an awesome combo within a combo.
Otherwise very entertaining article.
I agree that T&N won't be able to step up to rule. It will try, but people will be prepared - and more importantly - will be able to disrupt it in the ways that it couldn't against ravager.
I think some monobeats will become useful again. Sleigh, MonoGreen, WW, possibly WG Aggro-Control. T2 might just be fun again.
Note: After being advised against it by my lawyers and council, I have gone ahead and posted a very contestable thought. Be warned, this statement has not been evaluated by the FFL, NSA, KGB, or FDA.
Even Millstone might actually see play again...
No longer staff here.
i'm personally going to make a lovely version of WW with the Jitte, and the swords of fire and ice / light and dark. and i don't have to worry about being dead on the fourth turn... unless they run a red blazing shoal, myojin of infinite rage, spark elemental deck and then it gets pretty ugly pretty quickly.
welcome to the new type 2...
-Cannibal-
I agree with Cannibal that WW or some sort of Quick Green beatdown might be the way to go. (sideboard ench removal).
And god forbid we see a few more multi color decks out there, or decks with any color at all. (Ravager is dead:halo:, long live the colors of Magic.)
Creativity makes me want to, to ,to oh hell, steal someone else's creatures and sacrifice them for mana.
hmmm... grasshoppa, when you can steal my creatures from me and play my deck against me then you will be ready to go out into the world...
white has some nice advantage creatures that can really make a difference to how you make not only you deck, but your sideboard. for WW the Kami of False Hope is a turn one drop that can be saved as a sac if you end up facing two darksteel collosus ond turn 5. Kami of the Ancient Law -turn 2 drop ... 2/2 for 2 mana... with a great sac ability. no reason not to play with four of them. what's the worst that happens? no enchantments to kill?
now excuse me while i go put together another blinkmoth urn / mindslaver deck...
-Cannibal-
Well I don't know about you but I'm still going to be running Viridian Shamans and Oxidises because I'm going to expect to see tons of artifacts from all the people who think it's safe to run them now.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't tested mono blue very much. Ultimately however I think it's going to depend largely on how aggressive the metagame becomes. The slower the metagame gets, the better mono blue becomes.
Sneaky: I don't really expect Big Red to stick around long. In the old type 2 it was specifically designed to pummel ravager (which it didn't really do very effectively), and not very much else. If you lose the 'pummel ravager' portion of that equation you're left with a deck that needs MAJOR changes to be competitive. It's certainly possible, but I'd be absolutely terrified heading into an unknown metagame with Big Red, so for a while at least I expect it to drop out of the metagame.
Mafia Stats
That depends on the red deck. White has very little in the way of removal besides wrath effects. A smart sligh player could play around wrath and over-commit just enough to force damage through.
I have to say that I am THOROUGHLY dissappointed in the DCI. I feel that the bannings/restrictions were TOTALLY unnecessary. I remember you saying before about banning the artifact lands would be too much. Now you banned ALL of them AND Disciple and Ravager? Why? Your explanation wasn't good enough in my opinion. All I understood was "We cater to the casual players. Oh, and we wanted people to buy more CoK." Seriously, this new block sucks CoK... pun intended. As you guys said before, there will ALWAYS be a best deck. Couldn't you have let Broodstar survive? Even Krak-Clan Ironworks? KCI rolls over to counter-magic. Broodstar is beatable. Hell, I had just as much fun beating down on some Affinity with my Sligh as I did beating down on control with my Affinity. I played R/G Land Destruction at the 2004 South Regionals tournament. I played 4 Affinity decks in 11 rounds of Swiss. I ran over all of them, not having a single match loss against Affinity. That was when Clamp WAS legal. I placed 12th due to an opponent's lucky draw of 2 Sacred Ground opening hand. My name is Derek J. Fallon. Check it if you don't believe me. If Affinity had Clamp then, and I don't think it was broken, and it was VERY beatable, NOTHING you can ever say can convince me that it's unbeatable now. The same hate is present now as it was then. Just because a few people whine about it not being fun, you ban EVERYTHING? Extended is diverse, but do you really think that Orim's Chant on a stick is FUN?!?! Do you think that people running eleventy counters is fun? Do you think that playing against Mind's Desire which can go off around turn 3-4 if built right is FUN?!?! It's competitive Magic folks, wake up. If the casual players were that worried about it, they know how to fix it themselves. Hell, there was still people playing Skullclamp in casual T2. You really think they abide by the Banned/Restricted list? NO! You want to know the honest reason why T2 isn't fun? Because Onslaught kicked ass, and Kamigawa had nothing to bring to the table. No new archetypes are out because Kamigawa sucks so much right now, it's not even funny. Therefore, most of the decks are from Mirrodin because there's almost nothing competitive in Kamigawa. I bet if you brought back Onslaught, Affinity would get raped left, right, upside down and sideways.
What about all those Affinity players? What about them having fun? Has it not occured to you the mass quantity of people that quit because of this? They were having fun. Now that they've poured over $100 into their deck to get those Ravagers and Glimmervoids, half the deck is banned. It wouldn't be so bad if Ravager, Disciple, or Plating went. But did the Artifact lands really have to go? No. They were far from broken. What about the whole spiel with Rebels? You only banned Lin Sivvi. What about Goblins? Those were almost TOO good at the time. What about Tog? That was just retarded. What about Fires? It was rediculous! But when Affinity comes out, all of a sudden it's not ok to have a good deck anymore? What the hellk do you want us to play? U/B/G/R Samurai? U/R Splice? PLEASE! Kamigawa is the worst freaking block I've ever seen. In fact, I'd rather play Homelands right now. That was more FUN and didn't suck nearly as much.
Now the entire Affinity archetype isn't playable at all, as well as KCI, Cog Control, and Artificer's Intuition combo decks. You know why Affinity was so good? It just had synergy. That's it. Judging from R&D and the DCI lately, you guys don't have a clue as to what that means. It also had Modular, which drove it further. It became resiliant to artifact hate by just making another guy bigger. What happened to just making the deck more "balanced" instead of obliterating it? I thought it was already almost balanced, and this is coming from a non-Affinity player. You screwed SEVERAL decks. Now Type 2 is even less fun before. All you're going to see is U/G Meloku, Tooth and Nail, Sligh, and U/W Control. God forbid should Aggro ever win a Worlds tournament. I'm sick of seeing Control on top all the time.
What is the deal with cutting out the iconic cards out of Magic now? On top of the bannings, you guys are cutting out the cards that defined the game. Counterspell, Force Spike, Mana Short, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Duress, Engineered Plague, Earthquake, Hurricane, Pillage, Shatterstorm (Where the hell was this during Mirrodin? You guys said you made hosers in CoK.. I didn't see any. Any that were made were unplayable because you suck at designing cards apparantly. Imi Statue? Samurai of the Pale Curtain? Those weren't hosers. They sucked beyond belief. Where the hell was Energy Flux?), Swords to Plowshares, Armageddon, Karplusan Forest, Adarkar Wastes, Brushland, Underground River, Sulfurous Springs... Where the hell are they? A bunch of those have been around since Alpha, and all of a sudden you get a wild hair and decide not to print them? Do you honestly think beginners are that stupid that those cards aren't understandable? Rarity has nothing to do with it. YOU PRINTED WRATH OF GOD AND ARMAGEDDON IN PORTAL FOR GOD SAKES! Those sets were STRICTLY for beginners. You had the experts chasing after those cards. If your reason for not printing the pain lands was because of rarity, then look at that and then give us a real reason. Rare cards gives beginners something to work up to. You shouldn't just be able to join and get crap like Black Lotus and a foil playset of Wrath of God right away. By learning, playing, and winning tournies, those cards become retardedly easy to come by. I've had like 6 different playsets of Birds go through my hands, and I've been playing for 4 years. Hell, after the first 3 months of starting, I built an Opposition deck during Invasion/Odyssey/7th Type 2. Guess what? I WON! 7th edition was the best damn core set you've ever had. It was the foundation for the most diverse Type 2 format I've ever seen. Why? Because every color had good cards for the first time. I seen so many decks during that time period, it was awesome. You didn't go to every FNM knowing you'd either play Tooth and Nail, Affinity, or some crappy U/G Meloku deck. You know why Extended is so diverse? It's because of 7th edition. Most of the best decks came from that era when it was Type 2 legal. Hell, that was my favorite Type 2 era. It got screwed up when you came out with 8th, which is by far the worst. Blue got shafted, Black sucks, White is rediculous.. the only thing that makes it playable is Wrath, Red was ok, and Green only had Birds. Now you're screwing it up with 9th too? Why is it all of a sudden you can't print Birds and Elves together when they've been in print together since Alpha? And you wonder why nobody buys core sets anymore. They suck. PLEASE REPRINT SOME GOOD CARDS!
This was way out of hand. I can't believe you guys would stoop this low just to make a "statement". You know what that statement conveys to a lot of the serious tournament players? DCI and R&D are a bunch of jokers who don't know how to do their jobs. I have lost all confidence in you guys as of late, and I am, and many people I know are more than ready to quit Magic now. I can have about 100 people send you e-mails if you like. I mean, crappy sets, rediculous bannings, and pathetic excuses? What is there left? Magic has gone straight to hell. I hate playing now. You know what your bannings, sub-par core sets, and non-creative blocks have led to? Magic not being fun as a whole. Now people have to worry about building good decks because the DCI might axe the whole deck now, not just a card or two. That's what your statement conveyed. Thanks a lot.
If you were going to ban anything, the Disciple could've gone... Maybe the Ravager or Plating. But for God sakes.. why did the lands have to go too? 7 COMMONS! You killed 5 decks, and hindered several others. Please, undo this mess that you have only made bigger.
"For every heart that finds a love, there is a heart that cries.
where was shatterstorm during mirrodin block? i don't know if you were playing magic when antiquities came out (i was,it was the first expansion that i bought.) but everybody HATED that card. who wants to try to build a card with new cards when there is ONE card that hoses everyone of the new cards.
so... you hate playing magic now, and they don't know how to design cards.
enjoy playing Pokemon.
you (and the "they killed magic! i'll never play again!" attitude) will not be missed.
-Cannibal-
Warning for Flame Baiting-Qwerty
Flame Warning-Qwerty
If you re-edit this post again you will receive another warning for provoking people-Qwerty
"For every heart that finds a love, there is a heart that cries.
flashfires was not printed in a white oriented set.
boil was not printed in a set that revolved around the color blue.
hose cards all suck in my opinion. i have always disliked them, but there was something particularly offensive about Wizards giving us a new expansion (antiquities) and then giving one color (red) a way to completely hose anyone trying to play with the new cards.
you will note that Wizards does not make any more of the cards that hose specific expansions. this is for the exact reason that i was trying to make.
-Cannibal-
I've never agreed with anything about magic more in my life.
When Shining Shoal is the best white card in the format, something is terribly terribly wrong.
Thank you for that very interesting read and I hope they at DCI take it seriously.
However whats done is done and i wouldn't dream of quiting magic over it, just like i wouldn't have dreamed of quiting after the combo winter tolarian acedemy etc. bannings. Sure my ravagers and glimmervoids aren't worth as much any more but they're still good cards and versions of raffinity are being played in extended, vintage and legacy so its not as if you can't use them at all.
Also what's this idiocy about control being ontop all the time? after all in recent times there's always been a nice mixture: type 2 with oddessey had UG madness as a strong aggro deck and psychatog as a strong control deck, type 2 with onslaught had goblin bidding as a strong aggro deck and astral slide as a strong control deck, type 2 with mirrodin has raffinity as an insane aggro deck and then tooth n nail which is more of a beat down or combo(abunas/angel, vampire/triskelion) deck than a control deck. so really the only time in the last few years when either aggro or control rained supreme was right now with raffinity.
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
Tooth and Nail is Control Deck.
Raffinity can Aggro, then fall back on the Deciple+Ravager combo for the last few points of damage.
Affinity is, or was, by no means a control deck. Control decks play controlling, aka reactive cards: cards that mess with the opponent's board/hand/spells. Affinity played zero reactive card. And yes it often ended with combo, but combo is absolutely not the same as control, I suggest you look up what the words mean. TaN, I'd also not call a control deck but that doesn't fit in the normal "boxes" of aggro/control/combo.
Now, about Burning Rage's long post: I agree about the overkill. Banning Disciple was necessary, and I'd say banning Ravager would be correct also; it's replacable but replacing it does make the deck a bit weaker. Lands shouldn't have gone, it killed more than one deck completely which is stupid. His "fun" explanation was indeed bull****. Few competitive decks are fun to play against, after all, they're meant to win a lot and losing generally isn't fun; especially losing against a deck you know beforehand exactly how it's going to kill you. I absolutely don't see how losing to Affinity is that much worse than losing to a burn spell when playing against an aggro deck like Sligh, or losing to a combo deck or a control/lock deck like ScepterChant you mentioned. So far I completely agree.
Kamigawa block sucks, that is true as well. Champions was very weak for a base set, and Betrayers has only a few borderline playable cards and with that is one of the worst sets to come out since long... Your rant against the "stupid" decks from Kamigawa, like UG Meloku etc is kind of pointless though, as those decks do play some of the few good cards from Champions (witness, elder, meloku). Although I do hate the fact that Hinder is now considered a good card. Some point where you are wrong though: the field IS going to be more diverse - more than just the decks you mentioned - but that could have been accomplished by just weakening Affinity instead of killing it, too. Also your "I hate control decks are always on top" rant is pointless too, it's definitely not true as in the former type two Goblins were the best deck, and in general last years there has been a decent balance between aggro and control. Also this balance is not so easy to predict when releasing cards, so give them a break in this regard.
Finally, you go on a not-very-related rant about Eighth Edition; well what can I say, it's just true. 8E sucked and judging from what Wizards said so far it looks like 9th won't be much better. 7th WAS awesome, although I didn't realise it so much at the time. It contained a lot of cards that were the base of many decks, and while I do agree with WotC that the base set should not be stagnant and not all staples should be reprinted in every base set, it doesn't make sense either to cut almost all the good cards from the base set without adding new cards of similar power level. Now Eighth offers almost nothing to constructed Magic (Birds, Wrath, Mana Leak, Naturalize, City of Brass, Pyroclasm, Savannah Lions, Urzatron, Plow Under, err... Bribery? Obliterate? Vine Trellis? Phyrexian Arena? About 15 cards out of 350 are just playable... I don't want to do this count for 7th!)
Many Raffinity builds run Mana Leak, Terror, Oxidize and Viridian Shaman.
Also, Arcbound Ravager is a very controling card. It has the ability to fizzle targeted removal spells, as well as the potential to get past any board position you could have.
I realize that my rant about 8th edition was kind of random, but I had just cause. If the core set was better, and had more power cards like 7th, the format would be silly good right now. 7th Edition FORCED diversity. Every color had good cards, there's no 2 ways about it. With 8th edition on the other hand, it's very debatable. There are only a few playable cards. After looking at 7th at a closer glance, almost the whole set was playable. Maybe about 1/3 of it was constructed tourney worthy, but the rest didn't completely suck like 8th does. The hyped up card was Underworld Dreams... We know that's tech against Tooth and Nail. They were called CORE sets for a reason. I don't think we should have to rely on a card pool of 6 sets for a deck. If the core sets weren't meant to be playable, then **** FNM. Just play block, as it seems that's all that's getting play lately. As long as Mirrodin is around, most of the decks around the tourney scene will be from Mirrodin block. There is very few playable cards in CoK. Wizards just has to learn that. That's where the problem with diversity is. CoK is just horrible.
Also, as a side note, Slide beat the pants off of Goblins. Anything with COP: Red or Exalted Angel trampled over the little red men. To put it simply, they got spanked by control. U/G Madness was Aggro/CONTROL, control being a key word in there. Tog was just stupid.
In short, control has more wins at Worlds than aggro could dream of. I am a control player, but even I'm sick of control. By taking out Affinity, Wizards took out the best chance of an aggro deck to finally score a win. It was U/W Control that won last year if you remember.
"For every heart that finds a love, there is a heart that cries.
Now that the misconsception are out of the way I totally disagree with Burning Rage's initial rant to the DCI. Wether you like it or not, and no matter what you call it magic is not a professional sport/game. It is amature all the way. There is very little "professionalism" in magic, and the illusion that it is pro is just a marketing ploy by WotC. Which is why when attendance and sales fall they make thier move. Its all about promoting thier game. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am all for them doing whatever they can to promote the game and get high profits so they can continue to bring me more porduct.
Despite my general disagreement with Burning Rage, I do agree that the base set leaves a lot to be desired. If it has no relevance to type 2 why print it in the first place. When I started there was 1 "block" and a stand alone out (arabian nights, antiquities, legends, the dark). The staple of decks was the main set however. Now you are hard pressed to find a core card in a competative deck. This is a bad thing in my oppinion, but I do understand why they do it. To promote sales. If your deck is mostly base set with just a few splashes of the expansions then you buy fewer cards. If the expansions are weaker then the base set what is the point of buying those cards? They have to sell product to stay in buisness.
Now for those of you who do not know the history of magic let me give you a little insight. This game goes in cycles. The expansions start out weak, and grow in power with each new block untill they get to the point that people have had it with all the broken cards and things get banned. At that point they start all over with a relatively weak set that everybody complains about for being too weak. This cycle lets them sell new blocks because they get better and better most of the time, and leaves them with a dead year every so often. Again business and profit making the decisions.
Wow thats an awful lot and not a thing about the effect of the bannings. Well here is my prediction. Aggro just got the ban axe. There is not a clearly defined aggro deck to take over where ravager left off. It may be out there non the less, but in the short term I forsee a lot of tooth, a lot of control decks, and a few disruption decks thrown in to take down tooth and combo. Black is the big winner of the bannings since counters are to expensive axing blue as a possible choice for the disruption deck, and LD just is not fast enough which leaves red out. Black and its discard (which has been steadily improving in this block) look to be poised for a good run.
Ravager affinity is generally considered aggro-combo actually. Aggro decks, in the most general of terms, are ones whose primary method of winning is lots of quick cheap creatures and burn/removal to beatdown for the win. That's definately ravager. But the Disciple-Ravager "combo" kill on the end of that gives it an out that the arctypical aggro deck such as WW or UG Madness (which incidentally was just straight up aggro until it started sideboarding in extra counterspells) doesn't have. In that regard it's much more like Goblin Bidding, which is also generally regarded as aggro-combo.
Tooth and Nail is flat out combo. The easiest way to see this, is that if a Tooth and Nail resolves, the game is over. An entire deck, specifically designed to force one spell to resolve, is generally defined to be a combo deck. It also has other elements commonly associated with combo, such as the massive mana "engine" (not a true mana engine, but still), and the willingness to use incredibly bad cards (like Leonin Abunas), specifically because they are part of a combo.
Buring Rage: I agree with your part about 7th being really good, and 8th and CoK being, well, ****. I disagree with your analysis of the banning however. As a competitive player, the message I got when first reading the banning announcement was, "Despite all previous appearances, we actually DO care somewhat about competitive magic, and a deck that takes between 60 and 80 percent of the field is not healthy for competitive magic."
I agree a "fun" argument is insane. If a fun deck such as Mind's Desire or Scepter-Chant dominated the metagame the way Affinity is doing so for the next 10 days, then I'd sure as hell want something from IT banned as well.
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