In General: Banned and Restricted Update

Hello an welcome back to In General. I am Grandpa Growth and here on Sundays, we cover just about anything and everything relating to Magic: the Gathering. I promised at the end of the Fate Reforged Set Review that I would be discussing the top commons from the new set in my Pauper Cube update article. That will still absolutely happen, but I am pushing it back a week because we got some incredible news in the Magic world.

If you haven't already seen it, the new banned and restricted list has been announced. You can read all about it here: B&R Update. This is huge news friends: several cards were banned, some were unbanned, and multiple formats were affected. Let's walk through the changes and I will give you my take on each card.

Modern

Banned: Treasure Cruise

This is about as predictable as the sunrise, but I still think it is worth talking about. Treasure Cruise was abusive and had created a stranglehold. It singlehandedly forced about a dozen decks completely out of the format. Tight aggro-control lists require specific, high-synergy cards to coalesce into a solid game plan. These decks often need some cheap card draw or cantrips to glue the deck together. Without Treasure Cruise, Delver really isn't going to be a deck. This opens up lots of space in the format for decks that were more easily disrupted by Delver's cheap counterspells.



Banned: Dig Through Time

Although the debate was not unanimous. no one should be surprised to see Dig get buried along with Cruise. Delver decks would easily just switch the cards. They would be worse, but still strong. The trouble is that a slightly weaker Delver deck couldn't beat things like Scapeshift or Twin, who still get to freely abuse Dig. Banning Dig Through Time will make it so that Twin, UWR, Tron, and Scapeshift are back to their pre-Khans status in terms of power level and metagame share.





Banned: Birthing Pod

This caught many by surprise, myself included. I thought that Pod would be banned a year ago, but it wasn't. Since then, I just assumed that Wizards was endorsing, or at least accepting, Pod as the dominant deck in the format. The argument had been brought up that Cruise and Dig HAD to go, but then we were just left with the same format that existed pre-Khans (plus Siege Rhino). Many people thought that this would not lead to an interesting Pro Tour format, thus the banning of Birthing Pod.

Those who paid attention to the announcement of PT Fate Reforged will probably remember that it was slated to be a Standard constructed portion. This was later changed, as announced by Aaron Forsythe himself. This seemed a little fishy at the time, but I didn't think anything of it until now. The reason for the change is clear and it shows that Wizards has been leaning towards banning Pod for a long time now.



Unbanned: Golgari Grave-Troll

There is no Dredge deck in Modern and there won't be one even with this being legal. Troll was pre-preemptively banned when Modern was announced as a new constructed format. The thinking was that they wanted to differentiate this new format from old extended and restricting the power of non-interactive combo decks like Dredge and Dark Depths was a clear first step. I like the unbanning of Grave-Troll because I am not sure it should really be on the list in the first place.

As it stands Grave-Troll really can't have an impact on the format by itself. Dredge could be a problem with the right cards, but Dread Return is the key card in the archetype. Bridge From Below and Narcomoeba are cute, but there are a dozen or more high quality sweepers to solve that problem. E.g. Slagstorm, Drown in Sorrow, Wrath of God. This would only ever be a problem if you could Dread Return a Flamekin Zealot.


Legacy

Banned: Treasure Cruise

Again, no surprise here. The card is simply too powerful in concert with a critical mass of cheap threats, disruption, and burn. Importantly though, Dig Through Time has not been tested as rigorously in Legacy and could play a role in certain decks like Miracles, given an opportunity. An opportunity which the card will get it seems.


Unbanned: Worldgorger Dragon

This isn't as clear cut to me. This card was crazy and abusive and let to degenerate games with degenerate decks. In the announcement article on the mothership, this change was explained by the fact that any reanimator decks would simply rather reanimate Griselbrand than Worldgorger anyway. I am not so sure that it true though. Griselbrand almost always draws enough cards to find a combo finish, which is tough to beat, but that only speaks to the idea of banning that card.

In my opinion, the choice to bring back Dragon shouldn't be based only on the fact that Griselbrand is more appealing. Why would you unban a card that can instantly create a two-card infinite mana combo as early as turn one? Is that what we want to happen in Legacy? Force of will and Daze help keep unfair decks in check, but I don't want Wizards putting me in the position of choosing between only two decks: broken or Blue.


Vintage

Restricted: Treasure Cruise

I like this decision. Vintage is the broken format where no one cares what you are doing as long as it is awesome. Treasure Cruise was a little too strong, but things never really get banned in Vintage, which I like.

As you know I am a huge fan of Pauper and compete regularly on MTGO. I was expecting to see Treasure Cruise banned in Pauper, but it wasn't. I think that the format is diverse and healthy, but many people complain that Delver was already the best deck before Treasure Cruise and now there is no stopping it.

That is dramatic, but I am surprised about this no-call. It could be that Wizards doesn't really care if the format is imbalanced right now because there is no premier level events in Pauper. That would be unfortunate, but I expect it to be at least a little true.


Unrestricted: Gifts Ungiven

Okay. Well that is cool andall, but I am not sure it matters too much. Don't get me wrong, Gifts is a totally broken card and it leads to many truly miserable games. It often means that you just can't lose when you cast it. We all know what the card is capable of.

My thinking here is that there are cheaper ways to win in Vintage, so why pay more? Most decks weren't even taking advantage of their ability to play the first copy of Gifts, so that tells me they probably didn't want the second, third, or fourth.

That's all for today Zoners. As promised next week I will have the Fate Reforged Pauper Cube update article. See you then.

-GG

UL's Better Deckbuilding: Melira, Sylvok Outcast EDH

Welcome Back to Better Deckbuilding!

After months of testing a bunch of multi-colored failures, I decided to dedicate myself to another set of mono-colored Commander decks. Soon I'll have a double rainbow in my portfolio, and though I don't know what that's supposed to mean, they are surely going to be bright and vivid and bursting with cool ideas.

Melira's the first deck that's stuck in a couple months, and while my list isn't 100% tuned and ready, it is well enough long that we can talk about its oddities and its Hipster-chique today on TGZ.

WHY MELIRA?

Long story short, a Melira style deck is almost the exact opposite of all the things I'm doing in Silvos, my other mono-Green deck. Where Silvos costs 6, Melira costs 2. While Silvos beats face with his size and synergies, Melira's 2/2 body isn't likely to be winning with 21 Commander damage. And most importantly, while people might be expecting Silvos in the face, seeing Melira means people have a good idea that you're going to be doing something that's either 1) Not trying to win the game or 2) Something that exceeds what most people consider "fair."

If this were an in-class assignment, the
Design team's parents would've probably
gotten a call to schedule a teacher
conference. 

Alone, these aren't reason enough to confirm building a deck around her, but they are good for the purposes of doing the research for tangible, structural design.

From Standard and Modern, Melira is a component to value when used with Birthing Pod and other sac outlets. However, without access to low-cost value like Murderous Redcap, Melira's breakability is held in serious check. Short of the beat-me-over-the-head nonsense with Woodfall Primus, Cauldron of Souls, and a very silly flyer damage trigger with Aerie Ouphes, we're left with little design space for a combo deck as resilient as Sharuum or Saffi- but it still has potential.

THE STRATEGY

So with a few nice combo tricks with your basic sac outlet package (Phyrexian/Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia, Birthing Pod, and Greater Good), we can assemble some infinite nastiness with Woodfall/Ouphes and give this deck a powerful backbone. This is why I've jokingly called it, "Bad Saffi." But how do we get there? How do we make it consistent? How do we make it resilient?

The answer was simple: We create engines to go along with what we've got already. So we splash in a little bit of the artifact power I use in Glissa T's, and Voila! Like Frankenstein's Monster, Melira's beginning to will herself into an identity. It's Alive!

Although the design is going to be similar, and even have some cards in the other two, it's still got to be different and consistent. So let's look at what gets powered up in this design.

THE CARDS

As I've already mentioned, the world accepts that WP is OP. Still, it would be difficult to talk about this deck and not mention it, because it is the most powerful card in the deck with Melira and a sac outlet in play. Cheating it in can be pretty easy with Pod, but casting it is still fine.

I only have one copy of Woodfall, mostly so I won't totally abuse it. Still, this is the first time it's been a featured part of what I'm trying to do in a deck, and I think that always makes certain cards in any decks, like people in certain job positions, a lot more powerful. Specializing the labor, as I've said before, makes bad cards better, and better cards great.

The optimal setup is to get Woodfall in with Altar of Dementia and Melira, for super-feel-bad-rage-quits. That sounds pretty aggressive, but it's like any other red button- just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to push it. Without access to reliable artifact tutors, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get there either.

Speaking of which- Forgemaster and Skyship Weatherlight are my best ways to go get an artifact I want, which is obviously terrible because of the 8 mana or three permanents I have to give up to get this online.

Still, I don't mind the challenge. I'm potentially looking into playing Darksteel Colossus as a way to give the deck a little more of that "Green Beats Down" plan, as well as a little sturdiness for the mill combo decks that have begun to start popping around (Phenax is a problem).

What's better about Forgemaster over Weatherlight is that I have the option of beating face, it can be sacrificed, and I can potentially target it with a Cauldron of Souls to get it back and re-use it. Real decks are never going to give me the chance, but in more casual 1v1 and multiplayer games I have been able to get this going.

Another quality of Melira that's different from Glissa T's and Saffi is that this deck is very midrange-y. Again, here's another five-cost piece of value that's generally good, but obviously better in a Green deck with sac outlets and creatures you want to see more.

With Genesis in the graveyard and sac outlets in play, it keeps your opponents holding up a lot of unnecessary removal in the early game. Later on, it can be trouble, but with Melira preventing poison strategy, and access to some incremental life gain in addition to not being attacked, it will probably be used to prevent you from going downhill at them moreso than them pointing at your guys to win the game, which I prefer most of the time.

Especially when Phil Collins and the gang (Before he sang Lion King songs, he was in a band called Genesis) can go get it back.

Seedguide Ash has been one of the best value cards so far. Although I'm sporting 38 lands, it's easy to fall behind in some cases. In a game already, Seedguide dug me out of a 3-turn mana starve, and proceeded to come back via Genesis, yielding huge value.

This is a card I'm particularly happy about because it's one I haven't been able to power-up in design. Most mono-Green decks want to get his ability in a force chump situation or battling with it downhill.

Here, I'm going to get his ability no matter what, and that's pretty cool.

...And now for something that doesn't cost five.

I threw Rusalka in at the last minute, guessing I'd be taking it out later when I get my Phyrexian Altar in the mail this week, or another cheaper sac-outlet equivalent.

What I've realized through playtesting, is that the deck really needs this Starving Ghost Grandmother. It being a creature means I can tutor up an outlet. Our colors being green and having plenty of ways to get mana means this ability isn't hard to trigger, and gaining a little life along the way secures Starved Rusalka a spot in my starting 99 for now.

Also, another odd thing I realized was how much Birthing Pod still wants to have a few 1-drops, regardless of importance.

As it is a work in progress, here's the link, check it out, and be sure to give me some more ideas.

Melisandre Pod- Melira, Sylvok Outcast EDH

Pass Turn.
-UL