MTG Salvation

Quote from Cranial_extraction »

You cannot have a 3rd party that exists in the secondary market be in charge of a banlist. It leads to corruption. Prime example unbanning Painter's Servant. Any player who's been in mtg awhile knows the cards that are inherently used around this and can just hoard them, unban servant and sell out.

It's insider trading and WotC needs to take over the banlist before this gets out of hand.

Yes, I'm sure that a Wizards employee, a level 5 judge, a PhD, and a dude who writes for SCG weekly, gets an active duty military pension, and has a rocket scientist wife need to skim a couple of bucks by unbanning cards just to flip them.

That seems like a perfectly logical conclusion.

The thing of it is, everything they said are things which got the site to this point. None of it is relevant now, because the site has new owneez.for all we know, once they get settled with the transition they may do some heavy dev work and roll out some cool new features. No one can say for sure. When we were owned by Curse, there was red tape. A lot of it. And the more we got swallowed up the more tape there was and the more that precious dev time got divided among projects.

I'm not going to speak one way or another about the current owners of this site because to be perfectly honest they weren't any of the Curse reps that I dealt with personally. I know OF one of them from speaking with other staff members, but that's about it. But the fact of the matter is that this site isn't going anywhere and it'll do what it has always done when staff members leave: hire new ones and carry on. I know Bob is still here and I've already said that I would help the new staff if they'd like, as well as offer my opinions on any potential hires. And maybe some fresh blood with a new vision is going to be a good thing. I don't know. But there's no reason why the two communities can't coexist. This forum isn't threatened by the official forums, and vice versa.

Quote from ChazA4 »

Done, and done. I like this idea(must have missed it previous years), and I look forward to the data that results. Will you share said data after the polls close?

I will. If you attempt to open the survey again it will take you to a "you already completed this survey" page that has an link to view all results.

Quote from Onering »

If you already have an account here you just register there? There's nothing special you have to do to verify?

Not quite sure what your asking. These two sites are not linked in any way, so names aren't saved, if that's what you're asking. But there is no special process for signing up, just the basic make a user name and verify your email.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

Having both sites feels a bit awkward, since I expected MTGS to be closing down. I joined Nexus and really like it though. I'll contribute to both sites and hopefully one of them sticks. Any idea on which site WOTC or the EDH committee will frequent? I like using these communities to voice opinions in the hopes someone is reading.

I can't speak with any authority, but I have spoken directly to members of both WotC and the Rules Committee, and they expressed interest. I fully expect at the minimum Sheldon and quite possibly papa funk will register to the new site, as they have publicly said that they are always willing to visit sites that have good and healthy discussion (as opposed to getting ***** on by the users). And I am fully committed to maintaining the same welcoming environment that I spent years cultivating here.

https://forms.gle/aSA7hjo5G1HCK1V87

Hi everyone. For those who may not know, I have been conducting an annual survey about the Commander ban list and some of the more controversial and debated rules of the format. This year however, I'm both widening the scope of the survey as well as conducting it on a medium that I hope will result in much more feedback for the Rules Committee.

The questions are a mix of ones that i have asked in previous years, questions i see brought up constantly, as well as ones that I crafted based on reading feedback the RC has given similar polls in the past.

The poll should take five to ten minutes to fill out, so hopefully you'll participate. And please, share this with your friends and other players, because the larger the sample size the better the data will be for the RC.

Thanks!

Quote from ilovesaprolings »

So we basically have two mtg salvation right now, or something like that?
I haven't fully understood this whole situation...

Yes and no. We received word that this site was shutting down. We tried everything we could to stop this, to the point of buying the site outright, to no avail. So we did the only thing we could: we started work on a new site, one that we had complete control over. Halfway though the project, we learned that Curse decided to sell the site to another company and it would not be closing after all. For those of us who had already committed to Nexus, the choice was easy because it has the promise of being what we wish we could have done with this site.

So yes there will continue to be this site as well as a new one. I don't see any reason why they cannot coexist because there is no animosity and we all wish each other success. However, most of the current staff here will be departing for Nexus.

Quote from MRdown2urth »

I cannot reach www.mtgnexus.com on either Chrome or IE.

EDIT: Must just be my work computer as I can see on my phone.

Can you guys please give a very brief explanation on what this site is? Does Salvation still exist through Magic Find? Is Nexus separate?

In addition to the traditional forum that you are used to here, Nexus is going to a literal nexus where community content and magic resources merge into one place.

Quote from MRdown2urth »

Can you please post a working link? Thanks!

Weird, it worked for me. Either way, try now! Sorry

Quote from shenabagananins »

Who said it was good for the format? I entered into this thread to dispute her being a trap and an "accidental powerhouse" like your example of Sundering Titan. I think her and PS in the format simultaneously would be fine, but I'd also be fine with several of the banned cards in the format being let free. Back on topic, people ran Iona with the purpose of pain. They know what they did

My only real beef is with an argument that hasn't really come up in this thread so I won't bring it in here.

Ah, ok. 8 still think she is a trap in that the casual players were running her with good intentions, and either didn't realize that she was a fun suck or didn't care.

Quote from shenabagananins »

Her effect is 100% up front. It's not like playing, say, white Crovax for fun as an anthem that's hard to kill but then you realize, uh oh, I didn't mean to totally lock out the saproling player! Locking out a color is pretty unambiguous.



How is a card doing exactly what it says a trap? Because trap cards are things that seem cool but are more detrimental to your game plan than you realize, like a Temple of the False God in a rock-heavy deck without land ramp.

Also, the "target audience" of Iona is someone who wants to hit another player, possibly players, in the face with a brick. She does that very well. It's a big part of the reason why she just got banned. It's not that the Angels player wasn't playing prison; it's that they didn't need to play prison because they could just slot in an Iona and play her when they needed to make a sharp turn to prison town.

And that's supposed to be good for the format? "I'm not building a prison deck, but boy do I want to be able to lock one player out of the game if the opportunity arises."

You probably know about MTGNexus, but if you haven't checked it out yet, we are officially open so come take a look.

Quote from shenabagananins »

While there's a bit of a Timmy element to Iona it's not a trap card. As nuts as, say, Paradox Engine is a new player could easily slot it into a deck just trying to generate value before realizing how east it is to break.

Iona, on the other hand, is very up front about what she does. Even the Timmiest Timmy runs her to kick the mono colored decks in the groin. It's also not like Armageddon; land destruction is often followed by "now what?" Iona's "now what?" is beats.

Of course there's a lot of people who justifiably don't want to worry about Iona showing up at the table. I don't blame them. But it's not a trap, it's not an accident, and treating it as such masks what it does. It's a hard control option on a stick, not a mythical Timmy-tricking boogeyman.

In my experience, the Timmy use is to runnit as blue protection in your jank deck. Only sometimes the best line of play I'd to name a different color that hits more players. Or maybe it's just to lock that one person out who is ahead. And you know what happens when one person is handicapped in the game and the other opponents aren't? "Phew, good thing that card doesn't affect me and I don't have to expend resources dealing with it!"

So yeah, it's a trap card, because the target audience isn't intentionally playing a prison deck, any more than they were playing MLD but still wanted to use Sundering Titam in order to keep ramp in check.

Quote from Sephon19 »

The number of people that defend Iona baffles me.

She's a card that locks out monocolor decks. Colorless solutions are mostly on very bad rate. It's not the same as packing graveyard answers, for example, those are basically always vastly more efficient than what's necessiated to remove the angel. In addition, it requires a singular removal piece in a 100 card deck, intended for a particular card whose problems aren't truly mirrored in other cards.

For example, graveyard removal is always worth it to include a few effective pieces of. Same with artifact and enchantment removal. How many cards require similar removal to Iona, really? In a monocolor deck? There are plenty of impossibly resilient threats that you can try and race, for example. Iona is just a singular piece of frustration that either warps deckbuilding or ruins the games played.

No, I haven't seen her much. But it's because the people I play with remove her after trying her out. Because she ruins the games.

And yet despite the number of people who have stopped playing her because of what she can do to a game, players still are upset because they keep playing her casually in their angel deck. It's almost like she is a card that is a trap, unlike Armageddon, for example.

Quote from KevinL337 »

PE ban is an incredibly personal and biased decision. Only casuals want this card banned.

Awesome, then they made the right call, since this is a casual format.

There's a stronger case for PE not to be banned than for it to be banned. Not only does PE only fit into decks that run large amounts of rocks or dorks, it also requires set up and does nothing by itself.

Good thing mana rocks are niche cards that barely see play.

The card doesn't even untap lands, and there are multiple ways to deal with it before it goes off. This is a casual salt ban for a card which wasn't a problem in cedh.

Then cEDH players can ignore the ban and keep playing it.

Now casuals will just find somehitng new to complain about and flashhulk has become more oppressive for no reason in cedh.

How can a "not a problem" card create more of a problem for a combo that is way faster? Given the choice of playing a deck that's not a problem and one that is, shouldn't the default be to play the latter?