Ban List Update - Flash Banned

[Dragoon]

Interestingly I think Lurrus, Keruga and Gyruda are all vulnerable to the same thing just in a different power band; Lurrus-Ayli is a deck that doesn't really have a home anywhere I don't think. Casting Gatekeeper of Malakir over and over again is something that can be overwhelming.

I feel like Lurrus-Karlov is probably going to be more of a thing, Karlov doesn't get hurt by the restriction nearly as badly, imo.

I still stand by the fact (not really in reply to you, Pokken, just musing now) that the restrictions are not created equal and some of them, like Jegantha, are not nearly as backbreaking as they appear if you want the effect badly enough.

Agreed about Lurrus-Karlov, although I don't think it will cause any big waves. In Ayli's case, recurring Gatekeeper of Malakir is still weak compared to say recurring Fleshbag Marauder with Chainer, Dementia Master, Karador, Ghost Chieftain or Muldrotha, the Gravetide, etc.

Concerning Jegantha, it's true that its restriction looks less intense than the others (even though it might be deceptive), but I see it as a worse Bloom Tender / Faeburrow Elder, I don't think it will cause any problems.

If companion really becomes a big thing, people will just start packing more removal, like they should have done in the first place. They'll start paying more attention to what their opponents are doing and I can only see that as a net positive. Playing casually doesn't mean playing solitaire, pay attention to what your opponents are doing!

[Dunharrow]

I just realized I can't Flash Rector anymore. Lol. I just kept thinking about it with Hulk.

I really wanted to flash Arena Rector and search up Ugin at least once.

[Airi]

If companion really becomes a big thing, people will just start packing more removal, like they should have done in the first place. They'll start paying more attention to what their opponents are doing and I can only see that as a net positive. Playing casually doesn't mean playing solitaire, pay attention to what your opponents are doing!

You can remove or stop pretty much anything in the game, that doesn't really answer the core problem of "Is it problematic", or in this case, "Is it problematic from a philosophy standpoint".

I don't particularly think any of them are outright broken, but the mechanic is horrible, I find it very problematic, and it has the chance to be really bad if it ever is reused in future sets.

[pokken]

1-for-0'ing yourself is not my favorite solution to problem always-available cards. I think the more realistic solution to companions for me is to avoid them or only play companions/partners vs. each other. It almost feels like a different format.

I'm at the point with them personally where I treat every companion deck like it's Animar, Soul of Elements and pack power accordingly

[Sinis]

Yeah, Jegantha's restriction actually might end up being a bit of a bleh for high powered non-cedh circles that have to deal with Sisay/Jegantha because the lack of force of will/force of negation keeps the deck from being top tier competitive

Are those counterspells truly necessary now that Flash-hulk is gone? I mean, people can make big gross plays, but, it's not the pitch-spell-required game it used to be...

[pokken]

Are those counterspells truly necessary now that Flash-hulk is gone? I mean, people can make big gross plays, but, it's not the pitch-spell-required game it used to be...

In my opinion yes. You can still win on turn 1 with oracle/consultation, just at sorcery speed and 3 mana instead of 2.

I don't think you can get by with just Fierce Guardianship and Pact of Negation. Just my take though of course. There's a sort of gentleman's agreement not to suicide pact to save the table in most CEDH games I play though.

[DirkGently]

I think it's definitely fair to say that companion has radically warped the metagame for standard, modern, legacy, and vintage. I think mostly it's lurrus, but still, it was a risky mechanic to make and I think wotc has screwed up for sure.

That said, for limited and commander (the only two formats that matter), they seem fine to me. I know some people don't like them in limited but I've found it really spices up the draft. Makes me curious how the commander draft product will play out.

I haven't gotten to play commander with them (for obvious reasons), I'm really curious how many people will be using them when the LGSs finally open. There are a few combinations that are potentially fairly powerful, and time will tell whether those become socially banned like zur and arcum, or whether they become obnoxiously omnipresent like golos and atraxa. But used responsibly they seem like a fun time and a cool idea. Having an extra card in standard/modern/etc is a pretty big deal, but in edh if all my opponents started with an extra card, or even two or three, that would hardly seem like an insurmountable advantage to me. Tempo is so much more important when it comes to powerful starts that run away with the game, anything slow is gated by multiplayer dynamics and threat assessment. But hey, I guess we'll see.

Wait, isn't this the flash thread?

[Airi]

Wait, isn't this the flash thread?

It's for the overall ban announcement, which includes the rules change for companion, and the expanded reasoning for Lutri.

[Wallycaine]

I think it's definitely fair to say that companion has radically warped the metagame for standard, modern, legacy, and vintage. I think mostly it's lurrus, but still, it was a risky mechanic to make and I think wotc has screwed up for sure.

I think it's fair to quibble about whether they've "warped" the metagame for standard. Of the top decks, most are playing companions, but there's still a handful that aren't, and some others are simply last standard's decks with a new tool. Overall, to me standard feels about as changed as is typical for a good set entering the rotation, it's just that the nature of companion makes some of those new additions more obvious than usual. As an example, the Jeskai Fires decks have only marginally changed, but because Keruga is a Companion, that one addition sticks out more than the dozens of other small changes typical for rotation. And if we accept that shaking up but not breaking (which seems to be the case) the standard metagame was the intent, then I'm not sure we can say that WoTC has screwed up for sure, given their official policy is "test for standard and limited, if it breaks in other formats we can ban it".

[BeneTleilax]

now america is finally reopening and these are confirmed broken now.

[CommanderMaster999]

Probably know already but I mention it anyway

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/2020 ... 20-update/

They removed the "Cards that are legal in vintage" in the banned list it was only used as a shortcut to ban several cards

Lurrus kind of ruins it so now since he's banned in vintage so they have to add the cards to the list now

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/

Which is the antes, conspiracies, Chaos Orb, Falling Star[/card,] and [card]Shahrazad

So basically lurrus is still legal in commander which is no surprise

[cryogen]

Well that's it. I'm quitting Magic if they're going to make the list so long.

[DirkGently]

Whelp, I'm glad they changed the wording so Lurrus is still legal. He's a pretty groovy card in commander, brokenness in vintage notwithstanding.

Pretty crazy that they've finally banned a card for power level in vintage. And there's that ominous bit in the announcement:

If we see signs of long-term health issues resulting from high metagame share of companion decks, we're willing to take steps up to or including changing how the companion mechanic works.

I wonder what they would mean. Do they mean for tournament play, or would they actually completely change how it works? I guess it hopefully won't come to that.

[ConstantMists]

I wonder what they would mean. Do they mean for tournament play, or would they actually completely change how it works? I guess it hopefully won't come to that.

Didn't they do that for phasing when Teferi's Protection got printed? Used to be that equipment and enchantments fell off when a permanent phased. I believe they changed how phasing worked when that year's Commander product got released.

While I don't see quite how the mechanic could be changed myself, they could always ban the mechanic itself in Vintage and Legacy if it causes more problems than it's worth. While I haven't used it yet in Commander, I run a Standard deck on Arena with a companion, and I have to say it does make things interesting.

[WizardMN]

Didn't they do that for phasing when Teferi's Protection got printed? Used to be that equipment and enchantments fell off when a permanent phased. I believe they changed how phasing worked when that year's Commander product got released.

The only change they made was in regards to tokens phasing. Specifically, that they could phase back in. Things attached to permanents that phased out would stay attached (actually phased out indirectly). Vanishing would have been pretty bad/sort of nonsensical if that wasn't the case

You might have been thinking about things attached to tokens wouldn't phase back in (because the token wouldn't phase in). They changed that part of it.

[DirkGently]

This is more a standard complaint than a commander one, for obvious reasons, but I feel like they really dropped the ball on some of the balance for companions - specifically Yorion vs Lutri.

In a vacuum, I'd probably argue Yorion is more powerful in most formats, ignoring the companion requirement - Lutri is cheaper, but since you've usually gotta pay some mana to put a spell on the stack (current standard notwithstanding) - but they seem at least even-ish.

But then the requirements are ludicrously imbalanced. Since most standard decks are playing 4x of most of their cards, Lutri is basically equivalent "play a 240 card deck" compared to Yorion's "play an 80 card deck". I mean, wtf? Why is Yorion's requirement so easy?

Not to mention Lutri is just annoying design, since it was almost certainly getting banned day 1 from 2 formats, and afaik hasn't made any traction in other formats at all because the requirement is so insanely high compared to Yorion (maybe Lutri has a chance in vintage now? idk). At any rate, I don't like how cavalier they are about inflating the banlists these days.

[pokken]

Man as much as I love some aspects of Yorion I am super glad he's not playable as a companion in edh - that deck would be horrendous

[CommanderMaster999]

Man as much as I love some aspects of Yorion I am super glad he's not playable in edh - that deck would be horrendous

Not playable?

What are you talking about in a flicker deck with the flicker cards it's Eerie Interlude on a stick for every nonland permanents you own

[Wallycaine]

Man as much as I love some aspects of Yorion I am super glad he's not playable in edh - that deck would be horrendous

Not playable?

What are you talking about in a flicker deck with the flicker cards it's Eerie Interlude on a stick for every nonland permanents you own

They're referring to the fact that he can't be played as a companion, since you can't make a 120 card deck in EDH