man you guys are thinking way too hard over-analyzing what, at face value, was a rather straightforward decision.
like attributing choosing bridge over another card because they are greedy and only care about selling new product. is it not possible that bridge was chosen because it was actually the appropriate choice given its role in the most degenerate play patterns and its awkward and frankly poor design?
similarly their citing of certain data points but not including all the data they looked at isnt some deliberate attempt at deceive or hide anything. there isnt some set of immutable guidelines for ban decisions where some burden of proof exists. they are just people designing a game, and they adapt the 'rules' as they see fit in order to craft what they believe is a more enjoyable environment. so you either agree or you dont, and in turn you trust them or you dont. i get that players, especially ones that might use this forum/thread, would delight in more transparency; however it behooves wizards not to share everything they look at and the specifics because its needlessly constrains future decisions by setting precedent/expectations that most will likely misinterpret.
i mean did anything about the announcement seem unreasonable if taken at face value? regardless if anyone believed bridgevine didnt ultimately cross some line, i dont believe it can be argued the deck w/ bridge wasnt at least a borderline case.
All of this. People need to look at this and internalize it.
I dont know if you are on twitter tronix, but I consistently think 'this is someone people should listen to more.'
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
In the case of the Hogaak Bridgevine deck, its initial overall win rate on Magic Online was over 60%.
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Good points. I do believe they cherry picked the data (the 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics!) but even so, Bridge was the obvious choice when compared to Hogaak itself, or Altar.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
There will be, in 6 months.
I did not think they would pull the trigger after last weekend either, but it does do broken things and it was only going to improve, you could see many people playing it had not yet tightened up the lines of play. Similar to when Amulet broke out originally.
I'm pretty sure no 'pure combo' deck will ever be allowed to be better within the context of the meta than Storm. That decks been hit a half dozen times and its still just a 'did you kill my guy on turn 2?' question.
Yeah I got rid of a number of the foils a few years ago, most of UWR was foil, but I had back up copies. I think I dumped a bunch of the foils when someone got a game/match loss because one of the foils had curled, like 8 months ago? Something like that.
Tarns, Snaps, Jace, Teferi's, Colonnades, Phoenix, plenty of Dredge and NeoForm (was Grishoalbrand) stuff, most anything in UWR or UW Control's wheelhouse, stuff like that.
Another ban on a tier 1 combo deck. Why does wizards refuse to allow combo to be anymore than tier 2 at best? Pod, Twin, Bloom, KCI, now Bridge. Sends a strong message that combo has no place in the modern format.
The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.
Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.
Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.
KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.
Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.
This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.
What is the price line on Force of Negation looking like? I'm not really expecting it to go down anytime soon, but I'm not sure if it's worth waiting a month or two or if it's only going to keep climbing.
I think FoN keeps climbing. Some people are reporting success just running it main deck as 2 or 4 instead of the 2 Side right now. Then again its already at $42 on CK, can it really be a $50 card??
Well considering Looting is not going away, I'm cataloging my stuff. I'll probably work with Card Kingdom to liquidate, as I've had good interaction with their Support/Sales staff before.
I'm not sure if I like this. As I said in my previous post with this deck gone Tron will come back and we have metagame where fair decks are dead except for uw. I wish I was wrong on this one but I'm very sure this is (unfortunately) going to happen.
I believe UW is now powerful enough on its own to suppress Tron. We will see.
Seeing a lot of pros worry/complain/cheer that they will just play Phoenix or Dredge now, but UWx does not lose to those decks if it doesn't want to either.
Long story short. You still need your GY hate, but watch out for UW.
I think SaffronOlive has a good take on this. It's almost an Emergency Ban.
They had a ton of MTGO data, a ton of 5-0s (3x more than the next best deck) warped the meta (and I'll still have Surgical main) and it was keeping anything else out of real testing.
This gives a window of testing before the next event as they mention as well.
All of this. People need to look at this and internalize it.
I dont know if you are on twitter tronix, but I consistently think 'this is someone people should listen to more.'
Good points. I do believe they cherry picked the data (the 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics!) but even so, Bridge was the obvious choice when compared to Hogaak itself, or Altar.
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
There will be, in 6 months.
I did not think they would pull the trigger after last weekend either, but it does do broken things and it was only going to improve, you could see many people playing it had not yet tightened up the lines of play. Similar to when Amulet broke out originally.
Tarns, Snaps, Jace, Teferi's, Colonnades, Phoenix, plenty of Dredge and NeoForm (was Grishoalbrand) stuff, most anything in UWR or UW Control's wheelhouse, stuff like that.
The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.
Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.
Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.
KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.
Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.
This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.
I think FoN keeps climbing. Some people are reporting success just running it main deck as 2 or 4 instead of the 2 Side right now. Then again its already at $42 on CK, can it really be a $50 card??
EDIT: And only 3 Available?!
Will let you know how it goes.
I believe UW is now powerful enough on its own to suppress Tron. We will see.
Seeing a lot of pros worry/complain/cheer that they will just play Phoenix or Dredge now, but UWx does not lose to those decks if it doesn't want to either.
Long story short. You still need your GY hate, but watch out for UW.
They had a ton of MTGO data, a ton of 5-0s (3x more than the next best deck) warped the meta (and I'll still have Surgical main) and it was keeping anything else out of real testing.
This gives a window of testing before the next event as they mention as well.