Banned & Restricted update 2017
It's that time of the year again!
Last weekend we talked a little about the current meta. But rather than ranting on about the updates here, Gordon Andersson asked if I would like to talk about it on an extra broadcast of the Flippin' Orbs podcast. That sounded like a fun approach, so that's what we did.
You can check out the episode here.
For those of you who can't or won't listen to podcasts for some reason (random cool fact; the national deaf Italian record holder in 50-100-200m breaststroke is an active 93/94 player), here are the changes:
Darkpact is restricted*
Contract from Below is restricted*
Black Vise is unrestricted
Maze of Ith is unrestricted
*Note that Ante-cards are still banned if the tournament/game you play isn't played for Ante. There haven't been a tournament played for Ante yet, but as casual Ante games have started to slowly rise in popularity, we felt it was important to make these distinctions as well. The deck with 56 Swamps and 4 Darkpacts is perhaps the single most annoying deck in the history of the game.
As always it will be exciting to see how this works out and what kind of tech people come up with. Feel free to scream your opinions in the comments :)
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| Still something a little off with this picture... |
You can check out the episode here.
For those of you who can't or won't listen to podcasts for some reason (random cool fact; the national deaf Italian record holder in 50-100-200m breaststroke is an active 93/94 player), here are the changes:
Darkpact is restricted*
Contract from Below is restricted*
Black Vise is unrestricted
Maze of Ith is unrestricted
*Note that Ante-cards are still banned if the tournament/game you play isn't played for Ante. There haven't been a tournament played for Ante yet, but as casual Ante games have started to slowly rise in popularity, we felt it was important to make these distinctions as well. The deck with 56 Swamps and 4 Darkpacts is perhaps the single most annoying deck in the history of the game.
As always it will be exciting to see how this works out and what kind of tech people come up with. Feel free to scream your opinions in the comments :)
Thanks for the opportunity and confidence! So cool to bw able to anounce it on our podcast :)
SvaraRaderaWtf Maze of ith!? way to kill creature based strategies, i really don't get it and its so out of the blue.
SvaraRaderaWow, so this was your answer to the Mishra/the deck problem, interesting :)
SvaraRaderaControl decks playing 4 Maze will certainly be very good against creature-based decks (if their mana base allows it which is pretty important), but on the other hand creature decks playing 4 black vise will also prove challenging to the control decks as well..
Looking forward to test this new format out!
Thanks man, I hope we'll see some new interesting builds :)
Raderaso i can finally play oldschool lands !!
SvaraRaderathanks a lot
It's a super cool deck! Have you checked this list? http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.no/2015/08/danish-brews-part-ii.html
RaderaWhat the HELL?! Maze unrestricted?! Huhhh... don't you think The Deck was already dominent enough??
SvaraRaderaI find it a very bad call and it totally kills aggro decks, which were already not top tiers... Plus it will encourage land destruction decks, which are arguably among the most hated decks to play against.
It shuts creatures like Serendib Efreet, Juzam Djinn, Serendib Djinn. No really, not a fan. It seems like it will just close the meta rather than expensding the possibilities.
The Deck usually don't play Maze of Ith. It is very much worse than e.g. Swords to Plowshares and The Abyss. But I guess we'll see what happens in a few months.
RaderaYikes, I did not see maze coming at all. This will kill casual play and also tank the value of all the pricey Arabian creatures I just bought this year to enter the format.
SvaraRaderaHow does this happen without restricting something like nether void in the process? I'm curious the testing done on this. It seems like any creature strategy was just hosed completely. I hope I am wrong. Will let the feeling sink in a bit, but my first reaction is not a good one at all.
I am really against maze too, I think if creature base strategies want to survive,sideboard full of maze they will need lot land destruction's, you know everyone favorite strategies!
RaderaI can buy your pricey Arabian creatures if you want to get rid of them for cheap. :)
RaderaThe fact that maze is very rarely used as a 1-of in The Deck says something about its lack of viability in the format, really. Why would it be so much stronger as a 4-of than a 1-of?
Consistency of four maze helps make it a viable control strategy. Mazes plus wrath is better than maze plus STP. Multiple Mazes make drop of honey so good against creature based strategies. But creatureless strategies get better?
SvaraRaderaNeed more winter orbs
SvaraRaderaI rely like these changes. Hopefully prison can be a viable deck.
SvaraRaderaBoth good changes. Have been playing EC format a lot over the past year with 4 vise. The card is fine.
SvaraRaderaIMO, Maze at 4 won't change much. It's often a liability when costing a land drop, and is opens you up to to being more vulnerable to Bloodmoon and Armageddon if this is your answer to creatures. It does give Disk based strategies a slight boost, which is cool.
I expect UR to be the biggest beneficiary of these changes, with vise being a great tool vs The Deck, and Maze being weak vs a strategy that deploys Bloodmoon as standard, and has reach with direct damage.
Good decisions! One of the arguments against an unrestriction of Black Vise was that even though the vise is fairly cheap to buy, 4 vises in this format favors those with full jewelry, they can more easily get out of vise range (i.e 4 cards) by dropping moxes and lotus. The format itself has a fairly high entry treshold (if one wants those coveted Sharks. How was your thoughts on this matter?
SvaraRaderaI feel better about maze and am excited to play with 4 vise. I like the idea of atog with it. Think my playgroup is opting out of actually playing more than 1 maze because we simply like how our creature based decks run and don't want to use a ton of land destruction. I do think it makes sense for competitive play. Worst case scenario, we revisit next year, but I don't think it will be an issue.
SvaraRaderaMay be better than restricting factory.
I don't think so
SvaraRaderaFactory should have been restricted along with counterspell
Iiiiinteresting!
SvaraRaderaIn this case, unrestricting is much better than restricting in my opinion!
SvaraRaderaThe promotional cards!!!from the old books should be discussed to be legal! :)
SvaraRadera