Aazadan wrote: ↑4 years ago
Your nerf ban idea is interesting, I don't agree but it's a decent thought exercise as if nothing else it can help us narrow down what sorts of design ideas are unhealthy, as on the surface a card like Nature's Claim seems totally fine. However, I think that you're wrong on Force of Vigor. It requires a stronger commitment to green than cards like Nature's Claim do so it's not as easy to splash, and being mana free allows it to be a good strategy to prevent cards like Blood Moon from creating non games. I also find it to be a good way to create interaction against more unfair strategies than relying on just counterspells and discard, as being mana free is extremely important here as it allows you to tap out and progress your game plan while under a clock.
Sure, unfair decks can run it too, but that means they need to be running several green cards and green isn't really the most common color for unfair decks (assumes they don't have access to Veil to boost the green count)
Did a quick search on MTG Goldfish from 10/19 through present, same date range as in the MTGO sample, to see what decks actually run Force of Vigor. Of those 135 decks in that sample, 82% were definitively linear, less interactive decks (51% Amulet, 11% Infect, 16% Titanshift, 4% Bogles). The rest are a scattering of random decks. This supports my theory that Vigor disproportionately helps these types of decks beat regulatory pieces that would otherwise keep them in check. Less than 1% of all fair Jund, Snowblade, and Bant decks ran this card. It's in the same category as Claim and represents a great nerf ban to trim the margins of strong decks that don't need the G2/G3 edge.
Mikefon wrote: ↑4 years ago
I think that we could put the sultai Urza variant (without the thopter-sword combo) under "interactive decks" lable. I feel it no more no less than a midrange/control deck. It plays cantrips (Baubles and astrolabes), permissions, removals.
I agree that most Sultai Urza decks are pretty fair and interactive. They have Urza as the core engine, which is why I separate them into that other macro-archetype. If we break up the Urza lists into macro-archetypes (Sultai Urza to interactive, Paradoxical Urza and others to combo), we have the following breakdown:
Big mana: 28.8% (E Tron, G Tron, Amulet)
Traditional interactive: 18% (Jund, UW, Bant Snow, Sultai Urza)
Linear aggro/combo: 36.8% (Burn, Dredge, Infect, Humans, Prowess, CrabVine, Storm, Combo Urzas)
DS variants: 16.4% (Grixis, Sultai)
This is a little better, but we still see big mana and linear aggro/combo variants comprising 2/3 of the format. I think many players, especially enfranchised, spikey players, would prefer a more even distribution with control and midrange being more viable. I also think if we look at the actual win percentages of these decks, we'd find some players are willfully (or maybe unknowingly) piloting inferior strategies. In particular, I don't really know why you would play Jund instead of either DS decks (if you want to play disruptive protect the queen Magic) or Sultai Urza (for midrange). Similarly, I don't know why you would play Bant Snow without Urza when you can just play Sultai Urza. As we get more data, these two decks will likely fade from the metagame, leaving only one control deck in UW Control and one midrange deck in Sultai Urza. That's a dismal picture of diversity.