Banning Cards and How WOTC Intends to Control Standard.

[TheWakaEmu117]

This is really a Cathartic release for me and my reaction to the new standard bans. And I want to see how other people feel about it and perhaps explore what this means for the future of standard. Also Disclamer I don't actively play standard but I watch plenty of videos of covering events so my opinion is based on my observations from those events rather than me playing at my LGS which I would like to start. If any one has some cool budget decks send them my way.

First off for the most part I agree with the bans but have mixed feelings about what it represents for standard.
The banning of Attune with Aether is totally reasonable and for the most part wanted by the community. Attune enables 3 and for color decks really well. As we can see with 4 color engery the ability to splash for black is insane. In Temur Energy which is already crazy consistent and power full it gives the access to stuff for turns 5 and 6. specifically Scarab God and Varaska. I don't know how to feel about banning Rouge Refiner. It is an incredibly powerful 3 drop for the deck and really keeps the deck going on turn three and even later turns. I agree with these bans its fine and we can see decks besides energy variants.

I don't understand the banning of rampaging ferocidon at all that caught me off gaurd as well as the banning of Ramnap Ruins. Again yes mono red is very dominate but its not unbeatable but I think if you really wanted to take some thing away from that deck it would be hazoret and I dont think that is something people want. Idk I think mono red was/is a tough match but not unbeatable.

My third thing is if WOTC is going to keep a tight watch on standard like they are what does that do to standard card value. I mean it makes me at least reluctant to jump into standard in anything totaling more than $30 in fear of cards being banned and prices plummeting. but then again what do I know im just another dude with an opinion and the ability to put it out on the internet.

Also budget BW Vampires anyone?

Thanks Let me know what you think and sorry for the shitty grammer and stuff.

[Soren841]

Mono red could be beat if you made a counterburn draw-go deck. The banned dino was kinda op and not the meta they want

[TheWakaEmu117]

I guess WOTC has to be careful and form the meta they want then. RIP future cards

[Soren841]

Im happy with this set, i think my pirate tempo brew can do fairly well on a good budget

[Soren841]

They give us the open meta that makes it possible

[WWolfe]

I don't play much Standard (hardly any outside of maybe one or two FNM's a set to see if it's improved any), but these bans seem to be popular with the people in my EDH playgroup that do play standard and a few of them even made the comment that these were the bans needed to open the format up.

Seem some on this forum and the other I go to agree while others disagree. Guess it comes down to which side of the format you were playing?

[G. Moto]

I've a vamp deck or two that I'm soon to put on this site. If you get the Vraska planeswalker deck and upgrade it then you'll have some serious flavor and synergy with the build. Honestly I liked attune with aether but if they had increased the mana cost then it probably wouldn't of been a problem. The rampaging ferocidon I can see why they banned it. If they hadn't there would have been SOOO many vampires shut down simply because of this one card.

[TheWakaEmu117]

Yea overall I think it was a good idea for the bans I think four color energy is gutted or nerfed significantly temur is gonna be good but not dominant. I am thinking about brewing a b/w vamp on a budget and with mostly cards I have and really try to curve to turn 5 or something like that. mmm the varaska planeswalker deck might be a good point to start honestly.

I think the thing im taking the most away from these bannings is as the power creep grows WOTC will be more inclined to ban cards in standard. I also think WOTC is definately going to keep an eye on what decks are the most powerful and we might see more bans after Pro Tour RIX or not I don't think so it will be to soon to tell. but maybe after people have had time we might see another one around dominaria. who knows? Im going to try and play standard with some weird mediocre budget deck and will be more than happy to not deal with dominate energy decks and have a better game against the red decks.

[ladof]

I think the biggest problem with standard lately is that it has been in upheaval since they changed the blocks and how the rotations worked. They're still paying for that mistake and won't have it corrected until this fall. Remember, things like Marvel + Ulamog should never have been in the same standard rotation, so Marvel might not have been as busted (although it's still a good card in a smaller set of cards like standard.)

As to these bans in particular, I agree that they needed to neuter energy, I just don't think they did it enough. Attune was a good call, but leaving cub and hydra really just meant they were going to find energy in other places. I would have left hydra alone and banned cub, since he can get out of hand and win games by himself at times. As to ferocidon, it feels like that card was designed solely to counter guardian/saheeli combo and, since it's already been banned, ferocidon just became ridiculously good at keeping players from recovering from mono-red early aggression. I was surprised by it, but only because I never thought on how badly ramunap red would dominate the format if left untouched when energy died.

[DelverMage]

Personally, I was ok with having a restricted list.  Limiting a group of cards to one of 60 for being too powerful was not too bad in the past.

I think it would be interesting if  card rarity determined how many you could have in a deck.
Common x 4
Uncommon x 3
Rare x2
Mythic x1

THAT would make the game play more like Garfield intended.

[Mnemosyne]

With Attune with Aether the reason why it was banned was because it made Temur, and 4-5 colour energy decks viable, as the percentage chance of fixing mana was high, it meant that Temur could utilise less lands (22/60) and still maximise their energy generation. I mean I wasn't too concerned about Attune with Aether, but the statistics showed that that functionality of the deck depended specifically on that card.

Rogue refiner as TheWakaEmu mentioned is a powerful 3 CMC 2/3 that gives you a card advantage and a 2/3 body on the field as well as giving you 2 energy that enables many of Temur's energy based cards: Harnessed Lightning, Longtusk Cub, etc.

Rampaging Ferocidon. The reason why this was banned was because of diversity. Since Temur and Ramunap Red were dominating the Top 8 in the pro tour. To make other decks, Token decks, for example, playable, they had to ban Rampaging Ferocidon because it punishes token players too much. Example: you have an Anointer Priest in play and Anointed Procession with Hidden Stockpile, you sacrifice a token, during your Endstep you make two more servos, you then lose two life and Ferocidon prevents you from gaining life from the Anointer Priest.

Ramunap Ruins confused me at first, but as before, if Temur was removed from being a top 8 deck the next best deck would take its place, and that is Ramunap Red. Though the deck is beatable like you have mentioned, what matters is the consistency of the deck.

This is pretty much why Wotc chose to ban those cards! I hope that helps explain the bannings!

[HowlingLotus]

I think it would be interesting if  card rarity determined how many you could have in a deck.
Common x 4
Uncommon x 3
Rare x2
Mythic x1

THAT would make the game play more like Garfield intended.

Should be a format if not one already. Not sure if it would help standard, but limited amounts of certain cards might be viewed better than outright bans.

[ApothecaryGeist]

I think it would be interesting if  card rarity determined how many you could have in a deck.
Common x 4
Uncommon x 3
Rare x2
Mythic x1

THAT would make the game play more like Garfield intended.

Should be a format if not one already.

I agree with you guys.  I have long thought that rarity should play a part in deck construction.  I am certain that the only reason that it does not is inertia.  It never has been.  In the early days of Magic tournaments, rarity was not printed on the cards.  (Nor was there a networked computer in everyone's pocket  )  So it was never considered.  Back in Urza's Legacy, when rarity became a part of the card, I expected that it would be made a part of construction rules.  That never happened.  I would think that it might cut down on a lot of these bannings that have been happening lately.

In addition to the counts of each card like DelverMage mentioned, I have also thought that rarity should be considered in the entire makeup of the deck.  Like maximum of 15% rares or some such thing.  Or a minimum percentage of commons in a deck.

Maybe we can invent a new format   

[G. Moto]

 And also if you look at how Konami runs yugioh they have a Limited, Semi-Limited, and a Banned list for tournaments. But they also have different formats. Like their traditional format could closely be related to MTG's vintage format where anything goes as far as card choice in deck construction goes. But of course then again...yugioh has a max card copy count of 3 and they don't have a resource mechanic in their game.

[Chronologist]

I think that's a brilliant idea, that commons and uncommons can be at four, but for anything better than that, you two or one.  It would certainly resolve a great many problems that I've seen in tournaments.