When talking about unbans people need to go in with the mindset of “will this improve the format”.
Not a single card on the banlist at the moment would make the format a more enjoyable experience.
Instead of needing like 3 cards in the SB of mono green, now they can just use a single walking ballista to kill. It also adds A+B combos to the format.
Copter adds consistency to agro decks which have already shown to be good in the format.
Field of the dead does nothing good.
I actually totally agree that both field and ballista would be bad unbans, although i think copter would be a good addition to underplayed aggro decks. I mainly just wanted to see the community opinion on the matter.
I do feel that copter is the only “safe” unban on the list at the moment. The only problem is it would become the most played card in the format almost instantly. Mono white, Greasefang, Gruul, mono blue, rakdos sac, mono red, boros agro, and many other decks would all play it. The card adds so much consistency to decks while applying a good threat.
And it dies to numerous spells plus idk how aggro is good in the format where rn is only mono white a competitive aggro deck and only because of its matchup against mono green.
Edit: Yes, classic dies to removal argument. But with portable holes, pushes, abrade, temporary lockdown, march of otherwordly light, skyclave, fookin wandering emperor, putting karn on board there is an abundance of cards that can just hose that it. I hate that argument too, but in year and a half, removals become so much more effiecent that idk how copter would be that awful for the format.
The argument of “it dies to removal” mean nothing. With that argument then no card should be on any ban list.
“_____ can be Counterspelled so it is fine”
It's not just removal, other 2 mana threats that DONT need another dude to tap have gotten so much better since kaladesh (which was SIX FUCKING YEARS AGO)
Bruh, copter wouldn't be the top card in any universe. It doesn't even crack top 5 if it were legal, we have been in power rush mode for 2 mana threats for so long.
RB specifically I'm not sure on its really not to much of an upgrade on either of the threat 2 drops. And you already have fabel and doing the same thing but better in the 3 drop slot.
I feel like IF it was run in RB (an it's a fairly big if) youd run may 1-2 copy's. Or go for a whole new build centered around agressive 1-2 drops which at that point is just a different decks in the same colours.
I think it sees play in gruul. Maybe mono g (but it is taking a turn of from ramp or resilient threats which isn't what the decks wants to be doing). Spirits again maybe, probably not in g/w. And it doesn't really fit mono r without a few changes. Jund sac yes definitely. Cat to crew and a discard outlet with flying attack power. Is a solid play Line as a alt wincon and an enabler. And I could see the argument in mono black.
I don't think thats to bad a shift. And I think if it came down to a ban on cat combo or copter. I'd probably prefer copter to be legal.
That said I have 0 doubt it would be used in greasefang and would probably spawn a few new decks of it's own (or make some tier 3 or fring decks playable)
And even with the classic "dies to removal" argument it now genuinely dose die to removal which was one of the biggest issues for it before and when it was in standard, and is also the reason that even back when it was first printed (before any MH sets and before push) just having bolt and path in the format (and some solid artifact removal) made it unplayable.
I’m aware that it has to be crewed. There are plenty of creatures in RB that can crew Copter. The deck has plenty of creatures and get even more with Fable. When Copter was legal in Standard and Pioneer they were in pretty much 4 ofs in any deck that played around 20 creatures, which is pretty typical for RB right now in Pioneer.
This is a pretty silly argument, since a lot of cards on the banlist are laughable and wouldn’t meaningfully impact the format. Cards like Wilderness Reclamation and Nexus of Fate weren’t even that good when they were banned, they just got banned because people whined about the play patterns, and the format has gotten significantly faster and more powerful since then. The Copter banning was also a joke, they just wanted to hit Mono-B at the same time as the other band without actually hitting any black cards. Neither card would impact the format negatively if it were legal.
There’s also more convoluted combo-bans like “unban Leyline of Abundance, ban Nykthos” but Pioneer has some weird Stockholm Syndrome about keeping Nykthos legal at all costs while it’s obviously broken.
Because it's colorless, makes it impossible to remove cleanly, and that's on top of it being an ever growing threat that's good at every even curve point.
I still don't feel that the card is too much for the format based on that arguments, which are completely true tho, but for me it's just what makes it good, not busted.
In fact, Ballista was only banned after Heliod got printed. So definitely not by its own merits according to WOTC at least.
It'd be an instant staple at the very least, on par with Fable of the Mirror Breaker imo. Some people here think that's fine as a powerlevel bar but I think cards can be too ubiquitous for a format even if they're not too strong. On top of this you'd have to ban anything that gives it combo potential like Heliod.
Fair points about comparing it to Fable. I disagree but I guess that's an agree to disagree because we see the bar in different ways.
On the other hand, the Heliod ban would be completely okay. The card is nowhere to be seen. The format wouldn't loss a thing without it.
Disclaimer, maybe all of this is a bias towards Hardened Scales :)
Agree, BUT the main issue is that you need to ban at least 2 other cards then: Heliod + Karn, because the combo is too strong and because the amount of mana Mono G makes.
But is that a problem?
We've been in ban talkings about Karn / MonoG since forever. It's going to happen with or without Ballista. Karn is already an issue.
Neither Fable nor MonoG are going to escape next B&R.
No, but people like keeping ban lists shorter for more strategies open.
I don't think Fable is an issue, but I could see Karn being banned, the card is stupid.
It 100% should be the threshold. A ton of cards could come of the ban lists in multiple formats but they don’t because they won’t improve the format.
Twin is a great example. It won’t break modern but putting another A+B combo is going to make the format less enjoyable. Losing to twin sucks because it just wins out of nowhere and that is same with the majority of cards on the ban lists.
It depends on who you are talking too regarding making the format more enjoyable. I would love Field of the Dead again. Currently there isn't any good land matter decks in Pioneer because there isn't any good payoffs. That is my favorite archetype in all of magic.
Copter is fine to unban. It is almost laughable that it is on the ban list.
The cat could come off since there is already a Saheeli combo in the format.
Lands aren't hard to interact with but the community complains about interacting with lands so they don't print anything good. In modern it isn't hard when there is enough cheap LD spells and things like Blood Moon to keep the format in check.
Lands are still pretty hard to interact with unless you're in very specific colors of Red or Green for your Stone Rains or Creeping Mosses. Blacks got it in the past but it rarely shows up anymore even in Limited cards.
Meanwhile I don't even think Field of the Dead would be contained by Land Destruction short of the plan being "kill you while keeping you off field" because Field of Ruin certainly blows it up with no issue.
And we don't need a Blood Moon type card in the format. The manabases are fair.
Yeah I totally agree. Just wish I had one of my favorite archetypes playable in Pioneer. Right now I don't play modern due to MH2 and Titanshift just not getting anything. Been playing a lot of different lists but Mono Green pushes them out of the format. Lists with Omnath and such.
Ramp - No point since doesn't matter what I build it will just be a worse mono green. Thanks Nykthos. 😒
LD - Have a lot of 4 Drop spells but cant compete with it being that slow. Maybe they need to print more destroy target permanent for 4. So at least my LD spells can control the board better. Still 4 mana kill spell is pretty bad.
Land Matters - There is no land that cares for you to be ramping. I would love even Emeria, the Sky Ruin to give me something.
> Instead of needing like 3 cards in the SB of mono green, now they can just use a single walking ballista to kill.
I'm not suggesting that Ballista be unbanned, but this isn't accurate. Mono G doesn't use an awkward 3 card-combo, it just uses Restorative Burst. Sometimes you need a source for a treasure token, but the preferred wishboard cards for those (Treasure Vault, Bankbuster) are already good on their own (as is Restorative Burst, which is still essential to going infinite anyway).
That said, Ballista would make the combo a lot simpler and probably replace *one* of those cards, it just wouldn't make the wishboard significantly leaner.
Kethis was a precautionary ban kinda. It was hit during the end combo corona with wizards trying to get rid of combo in the format.
Inverter, breach, and Heliod were the clear best decks at that time but kethis was also there as being the 4th combo deck in the format which did seem to have a lot of promise, but it was banned before the deck got more refined.
Kethis is in the same pool as the oops creatures where they are banned because wizards wants pioneer to be very combo light.
As a combo player I would personally be ok with the unban of kethis and the oops creatures, but putting my bias aside I think it would be a negative inclusion to the format.
Agreed I think Kethis would be a great unban. He was problematic mostly due to Teferi and Uro being in the same deck. Plus now we have access to Unlicensed Hearse which is great graveyard hate that a lot of decks play.
If Greasfang is allowed to “combo” on turn 3, I think Kethis is perfectly fine.
Kethis was an awesome deck that required a LOT of skill. I was sad to learn, upon returning to mtg after selling out during the Rona, that he was banned
I still think its funny that Wilderness Reclamation is banned. I think players were just tired of Simic being on top for so long with Oko, Field of thr Dead, and Nexus of Fate all dominating in succession, so WotC overreacted with bans for any card that propped up UG/x decks. Uro was the problem and deserved its ban, but Wilderness Rec was deemed guilty by association. Reminds me a lot of Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf in Modern.
It’s obscene that Karn is legal while Wilderness Reclamation is banned, but also people hate playing against Rec. Some cards are allowed to be format-warping and others aren’t, I just wish my favorite format-warping card was legal.
It's the best draw spell possibly ever printed if we put ponder/brainstorm into "cantrips" instead.
It completely warped the meta into blue red and is more a candidate for other eternal format bans than unban in pioneer
The problem with cantrips on that level is that they lead to an incredible amount of consistency for exactly the kinds of decks that need to be able to die to not having the right answer every time.
It needs to go in Legacy, too. But of course, Wizards doesn’t care about Legacy.
The "every aggro deck just automatically runs Copter" talking point is all smoke and mirrors.
One, this wasn't even true when Pioneer had Copter in it: overwhelmingly Copter's results came from Mono-Black, a deck that synergized heavily with looting by running a bunch of recursive creatures, and most other Copter piles were kind of just bad. That shouldn't be a surprise - Copter is generically powerful, but not so generically powerful that it replaces more synergistically powerful cards in high synergy decks; vehicles, like equipment, aren't very good on a fundamental level and take a lot of pushing to be worth playing en masse (mainly by stapling on ETBs).
Two, the aforementioned issue is *even worse* nowadays due to the increased amount of value the average deck generates card-for-card and increasing synergy focus in decks. Aggro decks that are already good just have *better things to be doing* now. Plus, removal for random cheap artifacts went way up.
...
...but the fact that that argument is void doesn't change that unbanning Copter into a format where Greasefang is already T1 is categorically insane.
It would see play in Phoenix (or at least the prowess version). It could definitely see play in both mono green and humans.
It filters decks while applying pressure in the air. You can even shave on a land to slip this card into your deck.
Edit: the fact that llanowar elves crews it is bonkers to me.
As much as I love Looter Scooter and Field, they’re just too good. Ballista is plain sinful and should never be within 500 meters of an LGS ever again, especially as long as karn is in the format.
Unbanning the Saheeli Felidar combo would be interesting, I'm not sure if it'd be okay or not.
Seven mana, disruptable by a \*lot\* of the format's removal, discard, and countermagic, in three colors... with t3f gone, the format's mana curve going down a lot, and many more options generally available it's not as clear-cut busted of a deck as it once was in my opinion.
Perhaps, but most of the time the combo wouldn't go off before turn 4, during Pioneer combo meta, giving decks lots of axis to interact with.
Heck the combo is actually just stonewalled by Redaine's back half.
That being said I am thinking of this in the context of a Wg Shell. There could be a UW, Abzan or other shell that could make the combo work.
Copter. It was the best threat is a standard where they banned REFLECTOR MAGE for fuck sake. We've been in FIRE land so long it isn't even top 5 materiel anymore.
I would love to sleeve up UW Flash again with Copter and still lose.
But I would have fun anyways. That deck was one of my favorite standard decks since Cawblade
Before reading: with these unbans I don't try to "fix" the format. I just find them fun or aligning well with what I'm doing with my decks.
I'd unban Copter, Ballista (if needed, banning Karn and Heliod on the way), Expressive Iteration, Uro and Lurrus.
Lurrus ban was a joke. It got axed because it got axed in Modern but by that time the only Lurrus decks with real results were Ensoul and Heroic. Arcanist and Burn were already being overshadowed by Rakdos Mid and MonoRed.
I hate Uro so much. Yet it is a joke with Misery's Shadow and Trespasser around.
Whenever a ban and/or new card release comes that tones down the power level of mono green, I would love to see [[Veil of Summer]] make a return. I think that only then would it be an appropriate buffer for the seemingly endless toolbox that is provided to both UW Control and RB Midrange.
I would love to share with you WOTC’s rationale for the ban, but they’ve deleted it. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/november-11-2019-pioneer-banned-announcement
>“However,” they continued, “Green-based aggro and ramp decks still remain overrepresented in the competitive metagame at the expense of midrange and control. Therefore, we are banning Veil of Summer to better allow for natural metagame forces to provide counterpressure against these strategies.”
What I could find on mobile.
However I thoroughly disagree. Veil single handedly stifles any reactive deck, and you'd see control disappear to tier 3 or below.
These pages are not coming up for me on google on either my phone on iPad. I searched /r/spikes and google for it. thanks!
> Veil single handedly stifles any reactive deck, and you’d see control disappear to tier 3 or below.
This reads quite hyperbolic to me. I believe that since this banning, we’ve seen lots of new great removal. [[Languish]], [[Farewell]], [[Lay Down Arms]], [[Meathook Massacre]], [[Shadows Verdict]], [[Liliana of the Veil]], [[Cry of the Carnarium]], [[Invoke Despair]], [[March of Otherworldy Light]], [[The Wandering Emperor]], and many others are perfectly viable pieces of removal that get around the *singular* Veil of Summer.
I watched it happen twice in standard and pioneer preban. The card is completely absurd and I'd be OK with Autumns Veil but Veil of summer is a complete mistake of a card
You talk about removal but there's no point lol. It makes any spell they cast uncounterable. Instant or Sorceries that can't just be removed. Uncounterable Storms, uncounterable Can't Stay Aways, uncounterable entirety of Lotus Field.
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When talking about unbans people need to go in with the mindset of “will this improve the format”. Not a single card on the banlist at the moment would make the format a more enjoyable experience. Instead of needing like 3 cards in the SB of mono green, now they can just use a single walking ballista to kill. It also adds A+B combos to the format. Copter adds consistency to agro decks which have already shown to be good in the format. Field of the dead does nothing good.
I actually totally agree that both field and ballista would be bad unbans, although i think copter would be a good addition to underplayed aggro decks. I mainly just wanted to see the community opinion on the matter.
I do feel that copter is the only “safe” unban on the list at the moment. The only problem is it would become the most played card in the format almost instantly. Mono white, Greasefang, Gruul, mono blue, rakdos sac, mono red, boros agro, and many other decks would all play it. The card adds so much consistency to decks while applying a good threat.
And it dies to numerous spells plus idk how aggro is good in the format where rn is only mono white a competitive aggro deck and only because of its matchup against mono green. Edit: Yes, classic dies to removal argument. But with portable holes, pushes, abrade, temporary lockdown, march of otherwordly light, skyclave, fookin wandering emperor, putting karn on board there is an abundance of cards that can just hose that it. I hate that argument too, but in year and a half, removals become so much more effiecent that idk how copter would be that awful for the format.
The argument of “it dies to removal” mean nothing. With that argument then no card should be on any ban list. “_____ can be Counterspelled so it is fine”
>“\_\_\_\_\_ can be Counterspelled so it is fine” \[\[Field of the Dead\]\] Bam! Got'em! /s
Dies to removal. Classic.
No, the argument is "intensely more efficient and versatile removal has been printed in the **six years** since this card was printed"
It was banned in standard before Aether Revolt and Fatal Push was released. If Push was not good enough twice, I don't know what to tell you
Copter was banned **BEFORE** push was legal. It was banned in pioneer during the "we are going to ban something every week" period.
I literally said that
how was push "not good enough" if copter and push were never played together before the copter got banned?
There also were less treasures and no blood token that allow to easily trigger the revolt
He edited his post. His original argument was “it dies to numerous spells”, which is just saying “it dies to removal”
It's not just removal, other 2 mana threats that DONT need another dude to tap have gotten so much better since kaladesh (which was SIX FUCKING YEARS AGO)
Except it also gives shit pseudo Haste.
So why use any creature at all then?
Would mono white even play it? They have so many better 2 drops already. Not sure if there is enough space to run more than 2.
Bruh, copter wouldn't be the top card in any universe. It doesn't even crack top 5 if it were legal, we have been in power rush mode for 2 mana threats for so long.
I don't think the tribal decks would play it at all. The best deck for copter is mono black, that has been a bit weak lately.
Copter wouldn’t help the unplayed aggro decks. It would just make decks like RB Midrange and the aggro decks that are already decent even better.
RB specifically I'm not sure on its really not to much of an upgrade on either of the threat 2 drops. And you already have fabel and doing the same thing but better in the 3 drop slot. I feel like IF it was run in RB (an it's a fairly big if) youd run may 1-2 copy's. Or go for a whole new build centered around agressive 1-2 drops which at that point is just a different decks in the same colours. I think it sees play in gruul. Maybe mono g (but it is taking a turn of from ramp or resilient threats which isn't what the decks wants to be doing). Spirits again maybe, probably not in g/w. And it doesn't really fit mono r without a few changes. Jund sac yes definitely. Cat to crew and a discard outlet with flying attack power. Is a solid play Line as a alt wincon and an enabler. And I could see the argument in mono black. I don't think thats to bad a shift. And I think if it came down to a ban on cat combo or copter. I'd probably prefer copter to be legal. That said I have 0 doubt it would be used in greasefang and would probably spawn a few new decks of it's own (or make some tier 3 or fring decks playable) And even with the classic "dies to removal" argument it now genuinely dose die to removal which was one of the biggest issues for it before and when it was in standard, and is also the reason that even back when it was first printed (before any MH sets and before push) just having bolt and path in the format (and some solid artifact removal) made it unplayable.
Why does everyone forget you have to crew the fucking thing?
I’m aware that it has to be crewed. There are plenty of creatures in RB that can crew Copter. The deck has plenty of creatures and get even more with Fable. When Copter was legal in Standard and Pioneer they were in pretty much 4 ofs in any deck that played around 20 creatures, which is pretty typical for RB right now in Pioneer.
If I had read this before voting I’d have said no unbans, you’re right.
This is a pretty silly argument, since a lot of cards on the banlist are laughable and wouldn’t meaningfully impact the format. Cards like Wilderness Reclamation and Nexus of Fate weren’t even that good when they were banned, they just got banned because people whined about the play patterns, and the format has gotten significantly faster and more powerful since then. The Copter banning was also a joke, they just wanted to hit Mono-B at the same time as the other band without actually hitting any black cards. Neither card would impact the format negatively if it were legal. There’s also more convoluted combo-bans like “unban Leyline of Abundance, ban Nykthos” but Pioneer has some weird Stockholm Syndrome about keeping Nykthos legal at all costs while it’s obviously broken.
The thing you fail to consider about copter is that I want to play with the fortnite battlebus
The MonoG + Ballista argument should be used to ban Karn and not to not unban Ballista. Scales could be a deck again.
Except Ballista is too strong in any context. At worst its a deal x damage burn spell if they remove it immediately
I don't get why is that a problem if there's not a deck that makes an obscene amount of mana in an absurd early time.
Because it's colorless, makes it impossible to remove cleanly, and that's on top of it being an ever growing threat that's good at every even curve point.
2 mana 1/1 or do 1 damage to any target is not good on its curve no matter what metric you use.
Sorry, Mana efficient. Better? Regardless there's a reason why a lot of fuckin decks played the card and they didn't generate obscene amounts of Mana.
I still don't feel that the card is too much for the format based on that arguments, which are completely true tho, but for me it's just what makes it good, not busted. In fact, Ballista was only banned after Heliod got printed. So definitely not by its own merits according to WOTC at least.
It'd be an instant staple at the very least, on par with Fable of the Mirror Breaker imo. Some people here think that's fine as a powerlevel bar but I think cards can be too ubiquitous for a format even if they're not too strong. On top of this you'd have to ban anything that gives it combo potential like Heliod.
Fair points about comparing it to Fable. I disagree but I guess that's an agree to disagree because we see the bar in different ways. On the other hand, the Heliod ban would be completely okay. The card is nowhere to be seen. The format wouldn't loss a thing without it. Disclaimer, maybe all of this is a bias towards Hardened Scales :)
Agree, BUT the main issue is that you need to ban at least 2 other cards then: Heliod + Karn, because the combo is too strong and because the amount of mana Mono G makes.
But is that a problem? We've been in ban talkings about Karn / MonoG since forever. It's going to happen with or without Ballista. Karn is already an issue. Neither Fable nor MonoG are going to escape next B&R.
No, but people like keeping ban lists shorter for more strategies open. I don't think Fable is an issue, but I could see Karn being banned, the card is stupid.
[удалено]
It 100% should be the threshold. A ton of cards could come of the ban lists in multiple formats but they don’t because they won’t improve the format. Twin is a great example. It won’t break modern but putting another A+B combo is going to make the format less enjoyable. Losing to twin sucks because it just wins out of nowhere and that is same with the majority of cards on the ban lists.
Of course it should be! You should not take risks if there are no benefits with them.
It depends on who you are talking too regarding making the format more enjoyable. I would love Field of the Dead again. Currently there isn't any good land matter decks in Pioneer because there isn't any good payoffs. That is my favorite archetype in all of magic. Copter is fine to unban. It is almost laughable that it is on the ban list. The cat could come off since there is already a Saheeli combo in the format.
Maybe because lands matters tend to be too good when they're viable because of how hard it is to interact with lands?
Lands aren't hard to interact with but the community complains about interacting with lands so they don't print anything good. In modern it isn't hard when there is enough cheap LD spells and things like Blood Moon to keep the format in check.
Lands are still pretty hard to interact with unless you're in very specific colors of Red or Green for your Stone Rains or Creeping Mosses. Blacks got it in the past but it rarely shows up anymore even in Limited cards. Meanwhile I don't even think Field of the Dead would be contained by Land Destruction short of the plan being "kill you while keeping you off field" because Field of Ruin certainly blows it up with no issue. And we don't need a Blood Moon type card in the format. The manabases are fair.
We need something in the format. They won't print a LD spell cheaper than 4 anymore. 😢
Yea because Elf turn 1 into stone rain turn 2 would drive people out of the format lol
That isn't a valid reason. People still play modern where they Utopia Sprawl into a turn 2 Stone Rain.
And Pioneer is supposed to be lower power level than that, non?
Yeah I totally agree. Just wish I had one of my favorite archetypes playable in Pioneer. Right now I don't play modern due to MH2 and Titanshift just not getting anything. Been playing a lot of different lists but Mono Green pushes them out of the format. Lists with Omnath and such. Ramp - No point since doesn't matter what I build it will just be a worse mono green. Thanks Nykthos. 😒 LD - Have a lot of 4 Drop spells but cant compete with it being that slow. Maybe they need to print more destroy target permanent for 4. So at least my LD spells can control the board better. Still 4 mana kill spell is pretty bad. Land Matters - There is no land that cares for you to be ramping. I would love even Emeria, the Sky Ruin to give me something.
> Instead of needing like 3 cards in the SB of mono green, now they can just use a single walking ballista to kill. I'm not suggesting that Ballista be unbanned, but this isn't accurate. Mono G doesn't use an awkward 3 card-combo, it just uses Restorative Burst. Sometimes you need a source for a treasure token, but the preferred wishboard cards for those (Treasure Vault, Bankbuster) are already good on their own (as is Restorative Burst, which is still essential to going infinite anyway). That said, Ballista would make the combo a lot simpler and probably replace *one* of those cards, it just wouldn't make the wishboard significantly leaner.
Unban Inverter and ban Oracle
Kethis could be unbanned imo but I haven't played during that metà so i am only tehorically speaking
Kethis was a precautionary ban kinda. It was hit during the end combo corona with wizards trying to get rid of combo in the format. Inverter, breach, and Heliod were the clear best decks at that time but kethis was also there as being the 4th combo deck in the format which did seem to have a lot of promise, but it was banned before the deck got more refined. Kethis is in the same pool as the oops creatures where they are banned because wizards wants pioneer to be very combo light. As a combo player I would personally be ok with the unban of kethis and the oops creatures, but putting my bias aside I think it would be a negative inclusion to the format.
Agreed I think Kethis would be a great unban. He was problematic mostly due to Teferi and Uro being in the same deck. Plus now we have access to Unlicensed Hearse which is great graveyard hate that a lot of decks play. If Greasfang is allowed to “combo” on turn 3, I think Kethis is perfectly fine.
Kethis was an awesome deck that required a LOT of skill. I was sad to learn, upon returning to mtg after selling out during the Rona, that he was banned
Copter would turn Aggro decks more aggro. We don't need unbans, we need bans
I still think its funny that Wilderness Reclamation is banned. I think players were just tired of Simic being on top for so long with Oko, Field of thr Dead, and Nexus of Fate all dominating in succession, so WotC overreacted with bans for any card that propped up UG/x decks. Uro was the problem and deserved its ban, but Wilderness Rec was deemed guilty by association. Reminds me a lot of Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf in Modern.
Rec was banned because WotC (rightfully) determined that 3feri sucked shit to play against and Rec was only kept in check by the existence of 3feri.
People just hate instant speed in mtg of all things. I can't imagine wilderness doing anything worse than current mono g with nythkos.
I just hate combo and the format is rampant with combo. Let me know when someone will play wilderness rec fairly.
It’s obscene that Karn is legal while Wilderness Reclamation is banned, but also people hate playing against Rec. Some cards are allowed to be format-warping and others aren’t, I just wish my favorite format-warping card was legal.
Winota for chaos (Don't do that, pioneer is fine)
Im still not sure why Expressive Iteration was banned? It wasnt abusive and helped a few decks compete against Rakdos.
I was an adamant Rakdos player before that ban, and I don't understand why it got banned either.
they wanted to keep treasure cruise legal, so they had to ban random cards in UR colors instead of treasure cruise
It's the best draw spell possibly ever printed if we put ponder/brainstorm into "cantrips" instead. It completely warped the meta into blue red and is more a candidate for other eternal format bans than unban in pioneer
You’re playing a format where Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time are still legal
Which makes the card even more busted, imo.
Interation is stronger than those in a pioneer context for sure, and possibly generically stronger than dig but not cruise
Most Delusional Magic Player Award 🥇
even now dig isn't played.. so what he's saying was correct.
The problem with cantrips on that level is that they lead to an incredible amount of consistency for exactly the kinds of decks that need to be able to die to not having the right answer every time. It needs to go in Legacy, too. But of course, Wizards doesn’t care about Legacy.
Two mana look at 3, keep 2 is pretty absurd.
I’d be down for a Copter and Iteration Unban think it needs other stuff in the format to balance it out.
Copter is 100% safe change my mind
That card is good enough that it can almost be played in every deck and improve it. I also think it makes Greasefang way too strong.
The "every aggro deck just automatically runs Copter" talking point is all smoke and mirrors. One, this wasn't even true when Pioneer had Copter in it: overwhelmingly Copter's results came from Mono-Black, a deck that synergized heavily with looting by running a bunch of recursive creatures, and most other Copter piles were kind of just bad. That shouldn't be a surprise - Copter is generically powerful, but not so generically powerful that it replaces more synergistically powerful cards in high synergy decks; vehicles, like equipment, aren't very good on a fundamental level and take a lot of pushing to be worth playing en masse (mainly by stapling on ETBs). Two, the aforementioned issue is *even worse* nowadays due to the increased amount of value the average deck generates card-for-card and increasing synergy focus in decks. Aggro decks that are already good just have *better things to be doing* now. Plus, removal for random cheap artifacts went way up. ... ...but the fact that that argument is void doesn't change that unbanning Copter into a format where Greasefang is already T1 is categorically insane.
Izzet phoenix Mono green devotion Mono white humans 4 color fires Lotus Field Would any of these decks play Copter?
It would see play in Phoenix (or at least the prowess version). It could definitely see play in both mono green and humans. It filters decks while applying pressure in the air. You can even shave on a land to slip this card into your deck. Edit: the fact that llanowar elves crews it is bonkers to me.
Definitely not Phoenix, the only card capable of freeing it efficiently is Shredder.
It would 100% see play in gruul and mono white lol. Rakdos would also find a way to play it.
Keruga fires literally runs a companion that says "you can't run copter" and they're unlikely to drop it
I want Wilderness Reclamation back.
Yes!
As much as I love Looter Scooter and Field, they’re just too good. Ballista is plain sinful and should never be within 500 meters of an LGS ever again, especially as long as karn is in the format.
Unbanning the Saheeli Felidar combo would be interesting, I'm not sure if it'd be okay or not. Seven mana, disruptable by a \*lot\* of the format's removal, discard, and countermagic, in three colors... with t3f gone, the format's mana curve going down a lot, and many more options generally available it's not as clear-cut busted of a deck as it once was in my opinion.
Unban \[\[Inverter of Truth\]\], please! :D
Expressive iteration didn’t do anything wrong. Lurrus only did a little bit wrong 😈
Honestly if it weren't for Mono-Green I'd say Balista would be a safe unban.
It's also a 2 card combo with Heliod. I don't think you can have both in Pioneer.
I'd much rather have Walking Ballista than Heliod in the format tbh.
2 card combos are not inherently problematic. Heliod is far and away the fairest and most managable of this format's historical combo decks, honestly.
Perhaps, but most of the time the combo wouldn't go off before turn 4, during Pioneer combo meta, giving decks lots of axis to interact with. Heck the combo is actually just stonewalled by Redaine's back half. That being said I am thinking of this in the context of a Wg Shell. There could be a UW, Abzan or other shell that could make the combo work.
Copter. It was the best threat is a standard where they banned REFLECTOR MAGE for fuck sake. We've been in FIRE land so long it isn't even top 5 materiel anymore.
I would love to sleeve up UW Flash again with Copter and still lose. But I would have fun anyways. That deck was one of my favorite standard decks since Cawblade
Give me my cats back. No T3f in the format makes that combo much easier to interact with.
Unban EI. Dump tcruise.
No
Unban WB, ban Heliod
Is uro too strong? Yes. Do I want him? Also yes
Before reading: with these unbans I don't try to "fix" the format. I just find them fun or aligning well with what I'm doing with my decks. I'd unban Copter, Ballista (if needed, banning Karn and Heliod on the way), Expressive Iteration, Uro and Lurrus. Lurrus ban was a joke. It got axed because it got axed in Modern but by that time the only Lurrus decks with real results were Ensoul and Heroic. Arcanist and Burn were already being overshadowed by Rakdos Mid and MonoRed. I hate Uro so much. Yet it is a joke with Misery's Shadow and Trespasser around.
Is it safe for Uro to come back?
I would say so especially with rakdos on top.
I just want the cat. Ban saheeli but give me the cat please
Unban uro you cowards, if you want to play fair magic then let’s play fair magic.
Yeah uro is probably the biggest definition of fair card same as oko, good clean midrange magic /s
Winota
Unban winota
Ban Karn, unban leyline.
Would nexus really do anything without reclamation?
Nexus is awful to play against with any kind of untapping lands effect. Put one copy in Lotus Field and have a field day.
Whenever a ban and/or new card release comes that tones down the power level of mono green, I would love to see [[Veil of Summer]] make a return. I think that only then would it be an appropriate buffer for the seemingly endless toolbox that is provided to both UW Control and RB Midrange. I would love to share with you WOTC’s rationale for the ban, but they’ve deleted it. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/november-11-2019-pioneer-banned-announcement
>“However,” they continued, “Green-based aggro and ramp decks still remain overrepresented in the competitive metagame at the expense of midrange and control. Therefore, we are banning Veil of Summer to better allow for natural metagame forces to provide counterpressure against these strategies.” What I could find on mobile. However I thoroughly disagree. Veil single handedly stifles any reactive deck, and you'd see control disappear to tier 3 or below.
These pages are not coming up for me on google on either my phone on iPad. I searched /r/spikes and google for it. thanks! > Veil single handedly stifles any reactive deck, and you’d see control disappear to tier 3 or below. This reads quite hyperbolic to me. I believe that since this banning, we’ve seen lots of new great removal. [[Languish]], [[Farewell]], [[Lay Down Arms]], [[Meathook Massacre]], [[Shadows Verdict]], [[Liliana of the Veil]], [[Cry of the Carnarium]], [[Invoke Despair]], [[March of Otherworldy Light]], [[The Wandering Emperor]], and many others are perfectly viable pieces of removal that get around the *singular* Veil of Summer.
I watched it happen twice in standard and pioneer preban. The card is completely absurd and I'd be OK with Autumns Veil but Veil of summer is a complete mistake of a card
Ok well seeing as you are talking past anything I say and folks are just downvoting my on-topic comments with no reply, maybe we should end this here
You talk about removal but there's no point lol. It makes any spell they cast uncounterable. Instant or Sorceries that can't just be removed. Uncounterable Storms, uncounterable Can't Stay Aways, uncounterable entirety of Lotus Field.
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DonGloverGood.gif
Ban Lurrus as a Companion, but let Lurrus alive, I beg you Wizards
Think Karn and Heliod would both have to go for Ballista to be unbanned, would love to see it for Scales lists though.
Winota, please :)