[CLASSIC] NOV 2017 RULES / BANLIST UPDATE
Over the past few months, the format has been shifting from a battle of polarizing commanders (such as Edgar Markov vs anti-Edgar games, for example) to a battle of strategies (aggressive vs. burn vs. control vs. combo decks). While it is true that burn is still one major form of aggression in the format, Saskia the Unyielding or Akiri, Line-Slinger have been putting up better results lately. Fast, tempo-oriented or disruptive partner-ability commander lists are also growing in terms of popularity. Looking at the most recent metagame, the results show quite a balance among top performing decks, with many different strategies, despite one adjustment that nevertheless has to be done.
Changes:
👉 Individual card changes:
Fastbond is now banned.
These changes apply on December 1, 2017. The next announcements will be published on February 26, 2018 (applying on March 2nd, 2018).
Until then, we wish you all many good games! 🙂
Further individual explanations:
Fastbond
Fastbond is a very strong card, but not a broken card in singleton, as you need to build around it and assemble a particular sequence of cards to make it great. This is why we chose to unban it. Nevertheless Fastbond has two major flaws.
It can make broken things too early. Despite the fact that such events are statistically very rare, sometimes do they happen. When an opponent casts Titania, Protector of Argoth (or The Gitrog Monster) on turn 1, saying that it is a statistically rare event will not solve frustration.
Fastbond’s impact on the metagame wasn’t positive. It is a weak card against strong strategies and a strong card against “tier 2 or less” decks.
Unfortunately, for all those reasons, the field testing of Fastbond did not prove the card worth staying out of the banned/restricted list.
11 Responses so far
Vélocipède Centripète
November 27th, 2017
Ok, je vois pourquoi. Par contre, les “partner”, est-ce qu’on doit gérer encore longtemps? 9 carte en main, plus ou moins, au lieu de 8 normalement, et la taxe n’est pas partagée. J’aimerais mieux voir un “ban” sur les partner que des cartes individuelles qui prennent la poudre d’escampette.
Merci.
mkhonda4
November 28th, 2017
Please ban arahbo its so busted having 4/4’s and 5/5’s beat you down ever turn after turn two sucks. Its like fighting eldrazi in modern before eye was banned. it would be fine if it was just cats but all they have to do is run a few stax pieces and your locked out from doing anything. its been at my lgs for weeks and has not seen a game past turn 4. its beaten quenn marchesa, gitfrog, grenzo, leovold, and sharuum with no problem. my friend stopped playing it because of how oppressive it was.
Scrublord
December 11th, 2017
Lol. 3 comments counting this one so far and not much better on the facebook page at 33 top-level comments (meaning excluding replies). Remember the good old days when there were lots of responses because people actually cared about the format? Good times. Good times. I think it’s just too much for the Duel Commander rules community to just suck it up, admit they were wrong, go back to 30 life, and fix this jank banlist back to how it used to be when people actually played it.
Tyneic
December 13th, 2017
You guys are funny.
Cheers.
Mr Lingua
January 5th, 2018
5 comments and only 2 are relevant. You killed your own format with your own hands. Now at my store we are all playing leviathan that is the format you had before killing it.
Today i stand here, on these ruins that you still call format and i’m curious about what you need to say in your updates. They are distant voice of the ghosts of an ancient time. I wish you good luck
QKey
January 12th, 2018
In my local playgroup (we play FNM with 12+ people every Friday) we are very happy with the change to 20 lifes. If you want to see more control, then you have to give control a few tools to hand to decks like Zurgo or
Arahbo to stop. Most of these tools are already in place and it is very possible to optimize the control deck so that it can operate with little mana and under high pressure. However, unfortunately, in the matchups like Titania or Partners, you encounter the problem that you can not generate enough supplies. I am therefore in favor of the unban of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time.
At the same time I think that Sulfuric Vortex has created very exciting games and an important card for Zurgo was to keep up with Karlov.
zxtceb
January 15th, 2018
Statistically speaking , turn 1 gitrog is the same as turn 1 force of will… Then again fastbond is not a weak card against strong strategies, what strategies are you talking about ? Agros ? It is purely a broken card that should have stayed in the banlist… You are testing your own format which is good, and errors are humans but too many errors leads to a weak format… And frankly, in my local area the favors are now 70/30 for Leviathan…
Lucky
January 15th, 2018
Can we just go back to 30 life points already? This has been the most damaging and unfun change there is to a formatI used to love, making many cards unplayable and giving a substantial advantage to aggro/OTK decks
3drinks
January 23rd, 2018
If you want to fix the format…
https://www.facebook.com/THEmtg3drinks/posts/1738406106179599
You’re welcome.
QKey
February 1st, 2018
i like the idea of unbanning a bunch of cards, german highlander is there on the same page: ban as few as possible.
yo
February 9th, 2018
you could unban mana drain to make true control decks a little stronger. it’s a fun card that got reprinted recently.
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