pierreb wrote: ↑3 years ago
Disagreeing with ban decisions does not make them wrong or have bad outcomes. If banning opal had the opposite effect of their intentions, we would have a new artifact GY recursion deck, for example. The ban was to hit decks that used opal and the ban hit decks that used opal. That you think it was the wrong ban does not change that.
Or we're disagreeing because we are (were) actively playing the decks -and in the meta- to know that it was a mistake and they rushed into it. Oko-Opal decks weren't traditional artifact decks. They played the 12 "standard" artifacts of Bauble, Opal, Astrolabe and a couple of Explosives. Those numbers alone can't justify playing Opal to have it actually being a ramp spell. Now, add the fact that Goose and Oko both produce artifacts by virtue of existing and you get to the magic numbaer of at least 21 artifacts to have Opal online by turn 2 consistently.
The only thing that banning Opal achieved was nuking ALL artifact decks -bar the random Urza and Scales lists- from existing. That's it. Your fear of another "artifact GY recursion deck" is very simple to solve: ban Emry. She's the one that gave speed, consistency, and resilience to "artifact"/artifact decks. She is also the one that made those artifact GY recursion decks possible. Breach-Station can't function without Emry, nor can the artifact version of Jeskai Ascendancy. By cutting Opal you castrated all artifact decks and those GY recursion decks.
Timing the ban with the Oko ban didn't let us see if post-Oko artifact decks would be a problem. Chances are they could be, but then Opal still wasn't the answer. Emry or Urza himself were, because without Opal there are no artifact decks, but there are artifact decks without Emry (and to a lesser extent Urza). They saw both of them being played in the same deck and didn't even consider why, and just decided to go for broke and %$#% on a macro archetype.
pierreb wrote: ↑3 years ago
The reason to ban astrolabe + sanctuary would be to hit the decks at the margins. Same for banning AA + veil. A example of the contrary would be to ban Uro, which would hit all Uro decks dead center.
Banning Astrolabe and/or Sanctuary won't do anything to combat the Snow-core decks. They'll still be able to have absurd mana bases, or rather not really care about aggro since the format has slowed down by their presence. Veil is putting a stranglehold on U and B interaction (mostly B), and T3feri is an abomination of a card that shouldn't exist that every UWx deck MUST play. Not to mention that a potential Sanctuary ban will have severe consequences on rival control decks like Miracles, so you'll still be forced into Snow-core control decks.
cfusionpm wrote: ↑3 years ago
Lastly, Mox Opal likely would have been banned in April of 2016 (or ahead of the next PT) if it weren't for A) the outrage against the Twin ban and B) Eldrazi destroying Modern, followed by pump-aggro destroying Modern. Its numbers were nearly identical to Twin, and was living on borrowed time for four years. The ultimate irony is that when it finally was banned, it was for all the wrong reasons, because WOTC fundamentally does not understand how to evaluate decks and formats.
That's why I'm angry about Opal ban, I'd be fine if it had been banned way earlier, where it's relative power level was significantly higher than it is today. Since they left it alone for years after the fact and also printed Legacy level of artifact hate in Force of Vigor and Shenanigans, banning it for it existing in a deck that spit out artifacts by nature of cards existing, thus enabling it way easier than designed, and in the process %$#% up every potential artifact deck is a colossal misstep.
Greeksis wrote: ↑3 years ago
I mean, doesn't the fact that there were two-thee copies every time in every Modern challenge speak about their win rate a bit?
Win rate =/= popularity. Phoenix post March 2019 (I think) had an average win% of 53-55% after it's initial high of 58%, which is in line with every T1 deck that the meta adapted to, while it still put up many copies in Top 8s/Top 16s/Top 32s. Since we don't have the requisite data, we can't make the determination that it's either/or or both for the Snow piles.
Greeksis wrote: ↑3 years ago
You can't ban cards just with data; you have to use a little bit of intuition every now and then. Some examples include Probe and Lattice in modern, veil of summer in Pioneer and other cards. Personally, I think the work that is done from the BnR department is very good. They dont design cards. They ban/unban cards. Obv those who design cards have screwed up big time.
A couple of things, the only (recent) instance of them showing intuition in their ban decisions has been the Lattice one. Other than that and going back years I can't remember them using intuition at all, let alone in a good way. Probe ban was a straight up numbers and gameplay/game balance decision. Secondly, there isn't a banlist council or something like that. WotC does regular meetings on the health of formats and they decide what to do. Since Aaron Forsythe, head of Design, is taking part in those talks (and I think MaRo did at some point) it's a safe bet that, yes, designers do take part in those discussions. So by proxy, they DO design cards.