Banned List Update
Changes to the Overextended banned list:
Aether Vial is Unbanned
Dread Return is Unbanned
These changes take effect immediately. The next banned list update will take place on August fifth.
For the explanation about the changes in this update, please continue reading below.
Explanation
Earlier this week, I wrote this extensive article on July’s banned list update. The article fostered over 100 comments, and many great points were thrown around and brought up back and forth. In this piece, I’m going to address each of the four cards that were the focus of that article (Aether Vial, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature, and Stoneforge Mystic) and why this exact decision was made.
First, let’s talk about the unbannings.
Dread Return
The first card I want to discuss is Dread Return. I didn’t give this card a lot of attention in the pre-ban article because I didn’t want discussion of it to interfere with the other choices, and I would like to take the opportunity now to discuss it a bit more.
I promised shortly after the format debuted that Dread Return would be unbanned, and it’s important that I make good on my promises. However, it wasn’t a decision made simply because my hands were tied. Unbanning Dread Return adds something new to the format.
Originally, three Dredge cards were banned because I did not want the deck to exist at all in its Legacy form. Having to deal with turn two or three kills backed up by Cabal Therapy is agitating, and it adds a very annoying wrinkle to the format you always have to be worried about. You either have to run a ton of graveyard hate cards in your sideboard and give up margin against other decks, or run none and always lose to Dredge. It’s a very frustrating dilemma.
Not to mention, playing against Dredge is not fun at all. I mean, are they even playing Magic over there? I’ve seen Dredge win solely via game actions – dredging, resolving triggered abilities, and attacking. No lands, no spells, no activated abilities. There’s no other deck in the history of Magic that can claim that.
Though some people may enjoy this kind of Magic, a large amount of people do not. As a result, I chose to ban three different cards from the dredge deck. My reasoning was that these three cards would never be used for anything else but unfun, unfair strategies, so there was no reason to leave them legal. Yes, it may have been overkill, but it ensured that any kind of speedy, broken dredge deck would be impossible.
In hindsight, that is poor philosophy. There are a lot of cards you can ban when you consider that they can only be used for nefarious purposes. Part of Magic is to excite players with allures of powerful synergies, after all. Additionally, keeping the banned list as compact as possible is a good goal to strive for. The fewer exceptions players have to remember about the format, the better.
I knew I wanted to narrow the list down to just two cards banned specifically for Dredge, and unbanning Bridge wasn’t a reasonable option. That left me with Narcomoeba and Dread Return.
Now, I’d like to address a popular point of discussion in the pre-ban discussion comments. Several people said something akin to, “Dread Return is fine, but just don’t unban Narcomoeba – that’s the real problem.” Basically, they were making the point that Narcomoeba was more important than Dread Return – and I completely disagree.
In Overextended you already have Bloodghast and Ichorid. You have access to free creatures of which you only want to play so many of. Now, there’s no mistake – Narcomoeba speeds the deck up a turn from cards like Ichorid. Coming directly into play is much more powerful than waiting until your next upkeep or requiring a land drop. However, without Dread Return, a bunch of free Narcomoebas isn’t as scary. You can maybe Cabal Therapy a couple times or have extra 1/1’s, but where do you go from there?
Dread Return is much different. There is no redundancy for Dread Return; there’s only one alternate cost reanimation spell you can play from your graveyard. Dread Return enables more powerful starts and allows Dredge to reanimate game-changing creatures.
So, if Dread Return is so much more powerful, why Dread Return over Narcomoeba?
Dread Return is alluring. It can certainly do powerful things, and it may add another wrinkle to the format. But rather than being a frustrating wrinkle, it’s a very interesting, if inconsistent, one. It says, “Some graveyard hate would be nice to consider, but you can certainly beat me even if you don’t play any.” It gives people who have been looking for an avenue to deploy this kind of strategy a new tool to consider without simultaneously warping the format.
I built up several versions of Dread Return based Dredge decks to pinpoint exactly what they could do. None of them were too good. The absolute best draw resulted in them reanimating a huge creature on turn two, but that’s far, far, far less likely that just an already legal Reanimator deck doing that. (Or Combo Elves just killing you on turn two.)
For the turn two reanimation to happen, you have to play a turn one discard outlet, discard a dredger and dredge, then turn two cast Careful Study dredging twice and hitting two Bloodghasts, a Dread Return, and a reanimation target, then play your land for the turn and return two Bloodghasts, followed by a Dread Return targeting whichever creature you are reanimating. Like I said – unlikely.
More realistically, with a pretty good draw and no opposing disruption you can reanimate a creature and maybe Cabal Therapy on turn three. Most commonly, you’re going to be doing it on turn four if everything goes right, which is the same turn many combo decks will outright kill you. Without all of those Zombie tokens, life as a Dredge deck gets a lot harder. (Plus you lose its main form of resilience.)
Dread Return certainly ups the deck’s power, but not close to intolerably so. It’s exciting for many players that a deck like this can exist, but it’s also simultaneously relieving for many other players that it’s not something you have to sideboard 8 cards to beat.
At its most powerful, it will just be another playable deck in the Overextended metagame. It’s not even clear that going all-in on Dread Return will be better than something like Pedestrian’s more consistent Friggorid-like take on the Dredge deck.
If Dread Return becomes a problem, it will likely be swapped for Narcomoeba in the next banned list update. However, I don’t anticipate it being one.
Aether Vial
Aether Vial is a tremendously powerful card. Though it took many people a while to catch onto the Vial, it quickly exploded in popularity once players realized just how good it was. Does it belong in Overextended?
As I mentioned in my pre-ban article, Aether Vial mostly helps tribal decks and other beatdown decks that are benefitted by deploying multiple creatures that cost 2-3 in a single turn. Despite what many people feared in the vast discussion on Aether Vial, the cheap artifact isn’t even that good in Zoo and I doubt it will see much play there.
Zoo already has the most efficient creatures at each cost, and spending a turn playing Vial just sets them back in time.You would much rather cast Wild Nacatl or Kird Ape turn one than Aether Vial in a Zoo deck. If you don’t have either of those in your hand, well, then Aether Vial isn’t going to help you until long after you’ve already deployed your two drop normally anyway. I wouldn’t be concerned about Vial there.
The interaction with tribal decks is great. Players love decks like Merfolk and Goblins, which could certainly use the help, and Aether Vial being legal allows players to strengthen their Wizard, Zombie, Beast, or otherwise tribal strategy. This seems like a major upside.
Aether Vial in decks like GWB Junk, B/W Midrange, White Weenie, and other strategies is also likely to be okay. It will boost those decks, but not to a unfair point of insanity As I stated in my prior article, my largest concerns are control decks that will put the free mana to good use and the interaction with Stoneforge Mystic in control decks.
However, despite the potential for danger, all of the benefits of allowing Vial make it at least worth trying out in the format.
It may end up only being fringe playable. It may end up being a cornerstone. We can theorycraft all we want, and I can build more decks and play more games against each other, but really, the best way to find out for sure is opening the opportunity up to all of you. We’ll try it out for the next month and seriously reevaluate if it should be legal or not at the next banned list update.
Stoneforge Mystic
Now I’m going to begin talking about the cards that weren’t banned.
Stoneforge Mystic has been a force in nearly every format, and Overextended is no exception. There’s no doubt that the card’s ominous presence is frustrating.
Currently, the card is clearly highly played. However, that doesn’t mean it’s too good. Let’s look at some of the main places it’s being used.
In a Zoo deck, the existence of Stoneforge is okay. Yes, it’s still very powerful, but Zoo is about running all of the most efficient creatures they have access to. Stoneforge is just a very efficient creature with a lot of raw power, and it’s not going to be nearly as backbreaking there as it is in control archetypes. Having it killed is a gigantic tempo black hole.
In more midrange decks like GWB Junk and BW the card is certainly great, but, similar to Zoo, it’s hard to say it’s downright broken compared to everything else going on.
The control archetypes like U/W Stoneforge is where the card really shines. For its mana cost, it gives you something in every matchup that no other card can provide. However, if you look at the metagame data versus results, in last week’s Tuesday Night Overextended events we actually saw a significant drop off in the popularity of the U/W Stoneforge deck. I think we may finally be at the turn where players are shifting away from that deck choice, and I want to give the format time for that to develop.
Every playable card warps the format to some degree, and while Mystic certainly does, it might not be as much as you might think. She asks you to do one of two things: have an answer to a 1/2 creature, or have an answer to an equipment. If you can’t, the result can certainly be disastrous – but in a format like this, shouldn’t you be able to do one of those? I would hope so.
I was certainly hesitant to include both Mystic and Vial in the same format. Allowing players to Vial in Mystic is problematic since the Stoneforge player can leave mana untapped to protect it, and it prevents sorcery speed removal from working. However, I am not going to preemptively ban Mystic in this context. (For more on this, check out the discussion on Glimpse below.) If the combination of the two becomes ubiquitous, one of the two will not survive the next banned list update.
Stoneforge Mystic is certainly a card on the watch list and one that could be banned at some point. However, with the metagame morphing and changing, it’s too early to be sure. Having an announcement each month gives us the luxury of waiting to see, and that’s certainly the case with Stoneforge Mystic.
Glimpse of Nature
The decision to not ban Glimpse of Nature sets a significant precedent in Overextended’s banned list philosophy.
The decision came down to one crucial question: should cards be preemptively banned?
One very, very interesting quality about Overextended is that a banned list had to be created from scratch. If you think about it, the banned list for every other format is essentially grandfathered in.
Extended and Standard keep their banned cards until they rotate out, and the banned list for Legacy and Vintage has been tinkered with since, more or less, the game began. Even when Legacy split from Vintage, there was a good idea of what would be playable in Legacy. When new cards are banned, it’s done within the context of a developed format; cards are banned because they prove to be too dominant or otherwise problematic within the context of a format.
Overextended didn’t have that option. It was a new format, and it needed a new banned list to set the boundaries. Though I did play hundreds of games to identify these boundaries, to the eyes of everybody else all the cards on the list were essentially “preemptively banned.” Glimpse of Nature was certainly a card I considered strongly, but ultimately decided to put it on the watch list to let players try it and go from there.
Here’s the deal about Glimpse. I believe it is in one of the best decks (if not the best deck) in the format. I believe it has the power to cause unfun games. I believe it has the ability to end games too quickly. I believe it is too powerful. All of these properties are hallmarks of cards that are typically banned. However, the card lacks one very important property: results.
Practically every card Wizards has banned in the past ten years has been dominating a format. (Some of you may make an argument about Mystical Tutor, but even so that’s highly debatable and depends on your take of the word “dominating.”) Glimpse of Nature in Overextended is nowhere near that level. It’s done well, sure, but I can name several decks that have put up more consistent results. By that criterion, Glimpse of Nature isn’t banworthy yet.
On the other hand, this isn’t the act of managing a well defined format. This is an attempt to tweak the banned list to an ideal state. If I had put Glimpse of Nature on the banned list originally, there may have been some outcry but people would have mostly understood why. If I chose to ban Glimpse now, it would almost be like “correcting” the original banned list in that sense.
If more players who were proficient with Elves played the deck, I strongly feel it could dominate the format. However, without results showing that Elves is dominating the format, any ban on it is preemptive.
The bottom line is this: bans are all about ensuring people want to keep playing a format and dealing with perception in favor of actuality. Do I believe Glimpse of Nature is a great card to have in the format? Simply put, no. But is its existence currently making many players not want to play the format? The answer to that is also no. In fact, Stoneforge Mystic is more likely to steer people away than Glimpse of Nature is simply because of popularity and how the two cards are perceived. (Interesting enough, it seems like the two cards have exactly the opposite problems.)
After a lot of careful thought, I decided the answer to that crucial question the card’s fate hinged on was “no.” Though Glimpse of Nature is a problematic card, there is not enough of a reason or evidence to ban it with the way the format has played out so far despite what my feelings are.
Glimpse of Nature will remain on the watch list. If it begins to take over the format, it will banned in the next update. I will reevaluate and present you all with another pre-ban article and analysis as the next date gets closer.
The Watch List
Some of you have asked for an official “watch list” of cards that could be banned. I’ve always felt that official watch lists were kind of silly. All they did were note cards that were problems to keep an eye on in the format… but if there was a problem in the metagame, you could probably figure out what it was already. It’s hard to tell what a watch list really does that’s useful.
With that all said, I’d be happy to provide one for everybody The watch list for month is: Aether Vial, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature and Stoneforge Mystic.
Wait… aren’t those the same four cards that were just talked about in this article!? Yep. Glimpse and Stoneforge should be a part of it after all this discussion about them, and it makes sense to put any freshly unbanned cards on the list as cards to watch and reevaluate. Dark Depths is being taken off because it has not been a problematic card. Banning discussions next month aren’t limited to these cards, but they will at least be discussed again.
What now?
We’re through out first banned list update, and nothing has had to go yet. Hopefully we’ll be able to say the same this time next month.
Overextended banned list updates are scheduled for every month. Why? Because in a developing format it’s important there is room for experimentation and being able to quickly adjust in case a problematic deck breaks out. For example, I would be much less willing to unban Aether Vial if it meant I had to live with its impact for three months rather than being able to reevaluate after just one. It allows for nice trial runs like this.
One thing is for sure: it’s an exciting time to be playing Overextended. All kinds of new archetypes have been appearing, and with Aether Vial and Dread Return unbanned it gives all deckbuilders some new tools to try. What decks will be next? Well, we’ll have to wait and see – but fortunately that wait will just be a couple days!
I hope to see you all on Monday for Overdrive! followed the next day by Tuesday Night Overextended. Let’s see what you all come up with.
Thanks for your input and support as always,
Gavin
I agree with everything more or less. I hope the work being done here shows wizards they should unban chrome mox and dark depths in Modern. And who knows, maybe they could even decide to make Modern invasion forward.
I’m pleased with your decision and your reasoning. Time will tell if something needs to change, and there’s nothing wrong with ending speculation by allowing the format to adapt to itself.
Gavin I think you miss the point that some of us are just flat unwilling to go out and get the cards for the Combo Elves with the current tourney setup it just doesn’t pay out well enough to make such an investment with the sole perpouse to get a card banned because we start terrorizing the format with it.
Now should we have been having weekly top8 tournaments that paid out such as the first two events were and did, then that would be a whole different ball bark as we could recoup the investment with the winnings. thus not feeling the sting of the banning as much.
In no way am i pushing for a change in the structure I just figured to chime in as to why you’re not seeing as many elf decks as you might otherwise.
Yes the main deck is relatively cheap but lets be honest its the sideboard that gives the deck its resiliency, and x4 Vengevine is just flat out of reach for alot of the casual players that frequent the scene making up a large portion of our metagame.
Good point, and thanks for chiming in. Can’t you say that about numerous decks though? Zoo and U/W Stoneforge, for example, definitely both cost more. Looking through the list of recent top finishing decks, I can pinpoint several that cost more to build than Elves. It’s true that people are more likely to have Standard cards like Stoneforge Mystic, but in the case of decks like Zoo those cards are also only playable in Legacy now. (And in fact were last legal in a format where Combo Elves was legal.) With all that in mind, where do you think the cost gap plays a role?
What he’s getting at is that there isn’t a lot on the line so nobody feels the urge to play the “best deck”. Everyone is playing what they want. Sure I’ve spent like $100 on Meliria, and $150 on Scepter Chant (some of it was purchased with GavinTix ™ for winning matches), but i’m getting a ton of fun out of it. More than a couple video games, and i can always re-sell the decks and recoup 50%-75% of its value for other decks if need be. I’m doing that because it’s f’ing fun to explore a design space like this and see what i can do. That said, if an OE PTQ sprung up next week i’d pick up what i thought was the “best deck” and use chant or meliria as a fallback choice if i felt like i couldn’t win with Combo Elves. In reality, the lack of serious prize support, but just enough to make you happy you won, is helping the format get tested heavily right now. So yeah, its the boogeyman in the closet right now, and would prob need to get banned should it become a serious format, but right now its ok since its almost a gentleman’s agreement with the players to try out new things (which is really weird for MTG players, but that’s exactly how it feels. Everyone even conceded to infi life w/o making me combo out last week….i was really impressed). I honestly can’t think of anything else that’s been played so far that’s considered as big of a threat as combo elves.
And have you played against elves w/o the combo? Its still ok in this format :)
Look like having players that actually have an understanding of the game make for much more reasonable choice in the B&R department. I wholeheartedly agree with the changes, and even if there are more cards i’d remove from the list (Top), unbanning 2 cards (and 1 card that will get played a lot) is already a big result.
Time to work on some lists.
Standstill + aether vial, goma makedonien merrill so hood and broken, Think it is a big mistake
Ups gona* Make* merfolk*
Standstill is not that good without the fows to pitch the ones you don’t need.
Standstill not as good in an environment where opponents can put creatures into play and not trigger Standstill :P
My day: Wake up, see Banned List article up, buy 4 aether vials…now i just have to put them into every list on my hard drive.
Really feel that’s a mistake, but if that’s the rules i’ll abuse them.
We’ll have to see; with Elves already on the horizon and Zoo pushing up the number of one-drops, we may just see Mental Misstep move forward in viability to keep Aether Vial and other early-game strategies in check.
I feel the same way, but I’m honestly not upset by it. While it would have been nice to see the format retain some of its independent identity from Legacy by being Vial-less, I am still more than happy to pay out $6 for my set of a card that basically lets me dodge or bait countermagic. Either option sounds pretty brutal…
Although I dont entirely agree with what got banned, I agree with the reasons you proposed.
Very nice article.
PS. I might be playing an aether vial or dread return deck next week (maybe both)
Gavin: update the “Legal/Banned” page when you do this :)
I’m extremely confident Vial will get banned right in the very next update. It boosts some fair decks – and it boosts all the unfair ones that run creatures except Elves. I’m not sure if this was just a mistake, or a deliberate policy of getting everyone to break the card so obviously that nobody can genuinely complain when it goes out of the format with a kick in the rear.
Project Melira was on the upsurge. It gets immensely stronger with Vial. Who is going to keep that deck in check?
Cephalid Illusionist? 4 Vials in. This (like Elves) is a deck that can combo out on turn 2 (with mox) or 3.
Stoneforge and Vial will be a Plan B in many of these decks as well (and Stoneforge is NOT the problem in that 2 card combo).
Is Patron Wizard going to have a chance to *really* shine? I hope so, that is something I always wanted to do. But the effect is still a counter, and people are vialing. Maybe with 4 Missteps and 4 Shoals.
Similarly it is possible to put Erayo in for free at the end of opponent’s turn (where he cast 1 or 2 spells, perhaps one of which you countered) and completing the flip with some cantrips? Probably not as everyone will be vialing in their dudes anyway.
Finally: Pili-Pala and Grand Architect? Pili-Pala needs to get out of summoning sickness for the combo, but vial it out at opponents’s eot with mana open to protect it, vial up to 3 counters, grand architect down. It is a bit janky but it also can combo out on turn 3 versus a goldfish (turn 2 with mox, but that’s really risky).
Also – Mental Missteps and Pithing Needles will probably be everywhere – I’m just not sure if non-blue decks will go for Missteps or just get maindeck artifact destruction. Decks that get splash hate from that, be prepared.
I think it won’t be banned because it won’t be needed, the card is not as good as you think, specially in modern/oe. It’s better in legacy.
I’ve always wanted to play wizards tribal too! Do you know any video I can’t watch where there’s patron wizard at it’s full potential? hehe.
I honestly don’t see Vial helping out Cephalid… Without access to Narcomoeba, the deck is absolutely unplayable. Although Vial-ing in a Psychatog at EOT seems like an interesting direction, but I will probably be playing 3-4 Vials come Tuesday night, whatever I wind up playing.
Cephalid combo existed before both Dread Return and Narcomoeba; it used Stitch Together to reanimate a 20/20 Sutured Ghoul and gave it haste with Dragon Breath.
How am I going to play ooze now that vial is unbanned, I want to play with vial nao.
I am displeased at Vial being legal now. :(
I didn’t want vial unbanned, but hey, i’m developing a creature deck so i’ll abuse the heck outta it until it gets banned again. Give me a way to duck away from counters? Yes please.
I’m just gonna play Fish….once I get the Mutavaults that is….IF I can get the Mutavaults….and maybe Llawans, and Dismembers if I can find a bot to sell them at less than 4 tix a piece.
Which is absurd but another discussion entirely.
I like this banned list update. Aether Vial is going to make for some interesting interactions that won’t be broken in half thanks to the cardpool. Stoneforge is powerful but it hasn’t create an archetype that is unbeatable, and the zoo decks are numerous and deal with her quite well. Glimpse is a powerful card, and we’ll see the types of results combo elf decks put up in the upcoming weeks.
Also, dread return returns!
Just to clarify, I want to make clear that this is essentially a month long trial run for Aether Vial. Even if the card ends up being too good and needs to be banned again, I would rather give it a fair trial now and have its power definitively decided than have perpetual discussion surrounding it. Testing Vial out was almost an inevitability at this point. In either case, the information pushes the format forward. (Not to mention this information is very useful to Wizards since they had Vial unbanned in Modern.) So please, make your best efforts at breaking the card. I encourage you. :)
Vial is not that good. And I would like you to know that many many decks being played in these tourneys are subpar. Many of them wouldn’t win a game in a PTQ if the format was announced and had been played for months/years. It’s hard to ban/unban cards when people play subpar decks. Me for instance won’t buy the cards until the format is officially announced because I’m not exactly rich and don’t wanna waste money (and also need primevals and all is dust, and both are very expensive until rotation).
We will see if Vial is just REALLY good or if it is TOO good. I have difficulty imagining it won’t be too good, but let’s see how the creature based combos are kept in check. I think eventually it needed to come off and be tested.
I think mostly everyone knows that many of the decks are subpar. People are toying around with some ideas (at least I know I am). There are some cards that are strong but need to have the deck well designed, and even then may not be strong enough etc. But it is hard to know for sure without trying them. Last week I gave Erayo a spin, for example and did rather poorly. There is probably a better way to build an Erayo deck, and probably that is also not good enough – but who knows? Many strong cards were not put to good use right away in other formats, and the same goes for Overextended.
so Can ther be a Time when we Can test minds desire? Is was really not to scary in old extended, so a run coupe be nice
There’s a difference between a card that only interacts with creatures, letting them duck through countermagic at the cost of tempo, and a card that would easily dominate the combo half of the format if unbanned. Having played a Mind’s Desire deck on more than once occasion, I feel like it would be a little too much.
Excellent updates. I am glad Vial receives its trial run, and I am glad that Dread Return can help out Dredge. Also, I am extremely happy that we were conservative with Glimpse and Stoneforge Mystic, because those cards are just not nearly as format-warping as people were claiming. Time will continue to inform those decisions, but for now, there is really nothing wrong with them.
So with that all done, let’s see how UW Vial performs in these next few weeks…
-ktkenshinx-
Interesting read, I think Aether vial opens up alot of design space for fair strategies. It needs to be watched specifically with affinity I think.
I think I disagree about glimpse. My argument on glimpse is not that it abstractly is the best deck in the format. I believe its presence removes design space for other potentially viable decks. I don’t think ban list criteria (especially for a format like yours) should be limited to “does this win too often” or is “does it drive people away.” I would compare elves to the ominous dredge decks of past. Certainly you can beat elves, and I am quite certain that many people come to these tourneys packing the tools to beat elves (as the results indicate) But it’s presence is an ever constant threat, and leaving it in the metagame is going to splash hate other strategies the same way dredge hate would affect reanimate strategies.
The presence of elves makes one drop (or one power) centric decks very risky. Birds/Hierarch become far less viable, even dark confidant gets worse.
It happens to be true that cards like mental misstep, pyroclasm, chalice of the void are reasonable cards against elves, but would we expect to see nearly as many of them without elves in the format? I would also argue that Magic Online meta data is patently flawed for elves. Due primarily to time constraints and the inherent lack of shortcuts with modo. Anyway, this is all coming from someone who likes to play elves, and who is ready to play against it.
-Alex
Vial isnt broken to unban with the current decks in this format. That being said, you guys should proxy up fearies control with vial and then you will see the problems that arise. Being able to get locks without fear of counter magic is a problem. Not only that, it keeps them with mana open for their own counterspells. We already have a glimpse of the power U/W fearie control poses without having vial. The hope most decks have against it is that they tap out to drop a jace or stone forge mystic at somepoint. With vial now legal, every deck aside from some combo decks and maybe zoo will be playing 4. even with mental misstep, it will basically be a coin toss of who can race out the first vial with no counterspell available.
I’ve been pondering a Zoo build tweaked to take advantage of Aether Vial… I suspect that it might be worthwhile to put Dark Confidant back in, or even run Standstill for extra card drawing. With Vial providing extra mana, spending 1U to draw three cards might actually be worth the tempo loss…
I like the unbannings as I had advocated for both. The reasoning for everything seemed fair and solid. Then only thing I would say is, eventually Bridge should be allowed back without Narco since that one-two punch is pretty crazy and I wouldn’t want to hear the Dredge whining.
There are many variables that Legacy has that OEx doesn’t which makes many of the cards people are scarred of as good as they can be. Elves can and will be easily hated out as shown by what happened after Berlin when LSV won. While elves without glimpse are good in OEx I think the strategy goes way down without it. The deck is easily hated out of formats. I don’t think a Glimpse ban even in paper would ever be needed.
Equipments don’t mean any thing if you don’t have creatures to put them on. This format can easily hate out creatures and I don’t foresee SFM being as powerful as it was in Standard. While it’s decent in legacy it’s far from dominate and OEx is just as hostile to these sorts of strategies if people don’t want them to exist.
I’m honestly considering brewing up a list of Fae this week. I have a fair amount of experience with the deck, as one of my old testing partners was playing Spellstutter and Vendilion with Ninjas before anyone realized the Riptide Lab interaction. Taking that a step further with Vial is just a logical progression, and the only thing really missing is a robust draw engine. That and a reason to splash any other color, but if a color comes in for me, it’ll be black, since I’m a shameless UB advocate.
you got a perfect draw engine with vial already, its called standstill. Couple that with riptide lab and mutivault and youve got a nasty little lockdown unless your opponent wants you drawing cards. Add in stoneforge mystic and all of a sudden you have creatures that counter spells with flying coming into play with equiptments and standstill keeping your opponent from doing anything. Seems good.
A buddy of mine play tested this against my boros deck and about 70% of the time he won. A few times he lost do to mana flood/ lack of mana. It seemed like i could only really win if i was on the play and resolved a turn 2 stone forge mystic.
like Immen say vila or riptide lab shuld get the hammer… not cool that any one shuld got 4 misstep in evry deck to get a cchance gainst the format… not good.. like the dredge time when anyone need 8 SB slots to get a chance again Dredge… vial or Riptide need the hammer now!!!! like immen say, is just a matter of time when overextended be like standard with the jace/stoneforge rule it all…. but now with standstill vial and friends!!! is not healthy”"”"
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