Aihe: [GER] 1.11.2020 - Uudet Highlanderbännit

[pyyhttu]

Source: http://highlandermagic.info/2020/11/01/november-1st-2020-banned-list-changes/
Perustelut: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1564.msg15150

Changes to the present banned list, effective 15/11/2020:

Banned:
                                             
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise

• Secret Lair X The Walking Dead

Unbanned:
                                                 
No changes


Single card explanation (parenthesis -> voting result):

Tolarian Academy (Unban 2x / Ban 4x)

As it was communicated on the last banning season, this card is viewed as one of the most discussed cards for banning. This time we decided it is time to ban it - mainly due to sustained dominance and support from new added cards to this archetype like Echo of Eons, Wishclaw Talisman, Sevinne's Reclamation, Urza, Lord High Artificer just to name a few. We assumed Academy has its weaknesses - especially blue based tempo decks, which are among the most popular archetyps at the moment, are one of the best tools to fight Academy. Despite this development, the Artifact Academy deck as well as the Underworld Breach deck, which also exploits the powerful land, are still among the best performing decks. The fact that we are hitting the archetype that is supposedly in charge of having to keep the Academy powered decks in check by removing Treasure Cruise from the format is another reason to take action now. We believe that artifact centric decks still have a spot in the meta but they will have to forgo Tolarian Academy in the future.

Treasure Cruise (Unban 1x / Ban 5x)

For quite some time now, almost every blue deck has been including the two delve spells Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise by default since those cards are among the most powerful spells in the format. Especially tempo decks use them more effectively than other archetypes, building their plan around early disruption and cheap spells to fill the graveyard quickly in order to reload and continue to dominate the game. This puts those decks to the point where they dominate the whole metagame.
This fact and longlasting community calls for weakening of the blue color pushed for the banning of this card. One could ask why this one and not the other? As you can see Dig Through Time was close to receiving a ban as well. However we feel like it is better to take measures step by step and watch if and how the situation changes, when only one of the delve spells is available. Treasure Cruise was chosen to be banned over Dig Through Time to weaken Tempo Decks in particular, as Treasure Cruise is a lot easier to cast, enables more powerful turns and the sheer card advantage it provides is viewed as the bigger problem. We will continue to monitor closely how this decision influences the whole meta of course.

Secret Lair X The Walking Dead (Unban 1x / Ban 4x / Abstain 1x)

We have long discussed whether this specific Secret Lair should be added to the Ban List. The crucial point here was the feedback from the community. Nevertheless, and for reasons of better traceability, we would like to emphasize at this point that none of the ban proponents gave their "yes" for the common reasons, such as the skill-presence ratio or expected gameplay strength. We also doubt that the often-cited and player-desired "protest effect" will have a really significant impact on Wizards of the Coast and rather fear future difficulties with similar sets that will appear and to which we now may be forced to react similarly. Nevertheless, we understand the current dissatisfaction and in this case we want to listen to the community more than other formats have done. We will probably have to find out together whether that was the right decision in the long term.


Close to be banned:

Dig through Time (Unban 3x / Ban 3x) 

As mentioned in the explanation for the banning of Treasure Cruise we ultimately decided to leave Dig Through Time in the format for now. Reason being that this card is the weaker card in tempo decks, which we wanted to target in particular. Dig Through Time is harder to cast and the double blue mana cost make it more difficult to double spell with it. Furthermore it provides less card advantage but instead allows to find answers for specific situations which makes it a more “defensive” card. However, Dig Through Time will still be subject of our discussions and might get banned in the future if we observe that banning only Treasure Cruise is not enough.


Close to be unbanned:

Skullclamp (Unban 3x / Ban 3x) 

This card is still the most discussed candidate for an unban mainly to push heavy creature decks like Elves or Goblins into a more playable territory. As we don't like to have too many changes at once the card stays banned for now.


Current watchlists:

Ban watchlist:                                                   
• Demonic Tutor
• Dig Through Time
• Intuition
• Oath of Druids
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath *new*
• Tainted Pact
• Thassa's Oracle
• Underworld Breach
                                   
Unban watchlist:                                                   
• Skullclamp
• Tolarian Academy *new*
• Treasure Cruise *new*
• Umezawa's Jitte


Single cards explanations:

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Uro is another one of recent incredibly powerful printings that changed the landscapes of multiple formats from Standard to Legacy, leading to yet another ban in Standard. This creature does it all in some kind: It is a recurring and hard to answer threat that provides a strong board presence while giving you a constant flow of life and cards. In Highlander it has also shown to be a card that is hard to beat in “fair” matchups. While being more difficult to cast we consider it close to Oko in powerlevel, who joined our watchlist in May. The addition to the watchlist does not mean it is close to being banned, but we choose to keep an eye on Uro in the future.


Council

We are happy to welcome and introduce Sebastian Z./ TaZi as new council member. He has shown great dedication for our format as regular participant of the Online League since 2014, the FNM Online Series and many HL tournaments all over Germany in the last years. Moreover, he proved keen insight in the format and in the game in general by catching some top spots in those tournaments he took part, especially with his self-developed UGrb-Scapeshift. He has granted some content from time to time for our format on his YouTube-Channel “Heinz Holzwurm” where you can still find some decent decktechs and tournament-reports.

But TaZi isn't our only newcomer. We decided to include Marvin M./ Rigero as well. Some of you may already have seen him in his long-term role as a judge of the Berlin Magic scene. He is also part of the coverage and podcast team and has been supporting the Council for a long time with his technical and organizational skills. Rigero was also heavily involved in the development of the website, for which we are very grateful. He is currently collecting data on the mulligan, the most popular meta decks and various watchlist cards and would appreciate your support.

We know both of them as smart and gentle guys with exceptional analytic and programming skills. We are pretty sure they are a great assets for the HL Council and we are glad to have those two on board.

We would also like to add that we have not yet concluded our discussions regarding further admissions and are currently still processing applications and / or recommendations for other potential candidates.

We would like to thank the leaving Council members Dr. Opossum and Vazdru for their dedication and the work they have put into our format for many years and wish them all the best for the future! Vazdru stays in the Council till the end of this year as additional contact person for the community and to assist the new formed Council.

[Juzam Djinn]

Omasta mielestäni joko Dig/Cruise ovat hyviä kohteita banneille. Molemmat kortit tekevät vähän eri asioita ja ovat autoincludeja lähes kaikkiin sinisiin pakkoihin, pl. tietyt stax variantit.

Secret lairien osalta peukku, vaikka kortit nyt ei tainnut erityisen vahvoja ollakkaan.

Academy banni harmittaa koska kortti on monen pakan selkäranka ja joko tappaa arkkityyppejä kokonaan tai heikentää todella merkittävästi. Oathin tapaan myös rajoittaa hyvin paljon pakan rakennusta, mutta ei ole kuitenkaan yhden kortin combo. Paikallisessa metassa on korttia näkynyt jonkun verran ja pakat on vahvoja mutta ei oman kokemuksen mukaan ole dominoinut liikaa.

Okoa sen sijaan olisin toivonut pois formaatista. Kortti on autoinclude lähes kaikkiin pakkoihin jotka pelaa värejä tai joissakin tapauksissa jopa splashataan ihan vaan että korttia voidaan pelata. Se ei vaadi pakalta mitään ja turn 2 tai 3 pelattuna voittaa pelin monesti yksinään. Muistuttaa hyvin paljon TNN, toki tähän enemmän vastauksia väreiltä jotka voivat poistaa permanentteja.

Skullclampin unbannausta edelleen ihmettelen myöskin vaikka ei vielä toteutunutkaan, äänet kuitenkin 3vs3. Perusteluissa mainitut Goblinit (RB) ja Elffit (hoof) on oman kokemuksen mukaan riittävän vahvoja sekä saavat jatkuvasti uusia kortteja jotka parantavat pakkoja. Eivät mielestäni kaipaa tälläistä erittäin rikkinäistä korttia suoriutuakseen paremmin. Menee myös moneen muuhun metapakkaan autoincludena (kaikkiin jotka pelaavat creatureja?) ja kahden reilun pakan taistelussa voittaa pelin hyvinkin nopeasti.

Muista combovehkeistä (Thassa's Oracle, Oath, Breach) ei ole itselläni vielä kovin vahvaa mielipidettä. Breach on lisännyt storm-varianttien power levelia varsinkin Intuitionin ja Sevinne's Reclamationin kanssa ja olisi noista kolmesta itselläni ensimmäinen ehdotus lähtijäksi. Oracle taitaa olla enemmän control pakkojen finisheri, toki parempi kun vanha helm + rip combo. Oath on ollut formaatissa pitkään vahva decki, mutta ei liian dominoiva. Toki itsekin olen useamman kun kerran hävinnyt turn 1 Oathiin ja kyseiset pelit ei tunnu älyttömän hauskoilta. Kilpailullisesta näkökulmasta ei ole ollut kuitenkaan dominoiva kortti tai arkkityyppi.

Johtopäätökset ja mielipiteet toki perustuu paikalliseen metaan joka on kohtuu pieni mutta kilpailullinen. Ikävintähän vallitsevan tilanteen vuoksi on, ettei isoja turnauksia järjestetä ja tämän vuoksi ban/unban data perustuu aina pienemmän porukan testaukseen ja yksittäisten ihmisten mielipiteisiin eikä niinkään isojen turnausten statistiikkaan.

[Demppa]

Cruise ja larppisetti hyvät bannit, ei voi valittaa. Hot takena oon samaa mieltä Cruisen ja Digin peruste-eroista, aika näyttää.

Academy ei oo tällä ilmansuunnalla ollut kovin voimissaan, ja valitettavasti suoraan tappaa parit mielenkiintoiset täällä nähdyt dekit. En usko että iskee stormiin juurikaan, joka on omasta mielestäni yksi huolestuttavaan suuntaan menevistä arkkityypeistä.

Skullclampia en vieläkään halua nähdä formaatissa. En usko että sen laillisuus toisi mainituille tribaalidekeille sen kummempaa buustia kun muut dekit väärinkäyttäisivät clampia verrattaen paremmin.

Uro on aika luonnollinen lisä Okon kaveriksi, koska kuten mainittua niin UGx-tempoläjät vaikuttavat tällä hetkellä ylimitoitetuilta.

[Thalian]

Ei pitäisi olla kovin vaikea rakentaa dekkiä, jossa Clamppi on aivan älytön. Onko nyt niin, että counsilin jäsenistä kolmelle tämä on kuitenkin osoittautunut liian vaikeaksi?

[Peikko]

Ei pitäisi olla kovin vaikea rakentaa dekkiä, jossa Clamppi on aivan älytön. Onko nyt niin, että counsilin jäsenistä kolmelle tämä on kuitenkin osoittautunut liian vaikeaksi?

No siis, jos jenkkivaalit otetaan esimerkiksi, niin voidaan tukevasti todeta, että logiikka ja itsesuojeluvaistot eivät saa edes sivuroolia kun demokraattiinen prosessi pyörähtää käyntiin. Feelings do not care about your facts.