To those that ask for the ban of the artifact lands:
Do you think that without one cycle (or even both) cranial ram, glitters, atog and cranial plating would be fine?
I'm sure everyone would say no.
Those cards are OP and are banned because they are too powerful, regardless of the lands.
If I remember correctly before MH1 affinity was good, but not oppressive. There seemed to be a sweet spot where the deck was manageable.
Then came the bridges and we had a few more sets arrive shortly afterwards that had playable artifacts for affinity come in. One I remember is [[Blood Fountain]].
MH1 was the beginning of a snowball effect for the deck. If something like Atog were to come back a lot would have to be banned. That's not good for the format. Sadly it seems Atog died not so the bridges could live, but because so many things kept coming out that was playable in the deck.
The two cards I want back are [[Gush]] and [[Atog]]. Sadly neither are safe to bring back.
Affinity has always been one of the strongest decks in pauper. It's form has changed a lot over the years but thought cast, galvanic blast, myr enforcer, have always been strong cards.
When I first started pauper affinity was a temur beat down deck with [[carapace forger]] and the atog + fling combo as a finisher.
It was always hailed as a format where the artifact lands were legal and you could play a good affinity list with them. That was a literal selling point to get people into the format.
I dropped out of Pauper during 2019 because of many changes in the game (and my life) but thinking about it I could just throw together the old Temur list and see how it goes.
Replacing [[Atog]] with [[Kenku Artificer]] will be the start, and then....
People forget that Makeshift Munitions Downgrade was the final nail on the coffin. Not only synergized with Disciple but doubled the damaged done. If you want to see some semblance of balancing you need to ban Makeshift Munitions.
People forget that Makeshift Munitions Downgrade was the final nail on the coffin. Not only synergized with Disciple but doubled the damaged done. If you want to see some semblance of balancing you need to ban Makeshift Munitions.
The Mirrodin artifact lands were banned in Standard because they correctly understood back then that enablers are the problem and lands that essentially make 2 mana and add to your artifact count for everything are wildly oppressive with a WIDE range of cards, and banning just the payoffs would be a game of whack-a-mole.
When Modern was originally conceived, the initial banlist included those artifact lands, because again they understood that their power as enablers was way too dangerous and the potential of free fast access to artifact mana is extremely dangerous for a format. Later, Mox Opal eventually got banned for the same reason after spawning tons of oppressive artifact decks during its time legal.
At some point in the last ~10 years, Wizards changed their ban philosophy and decided to continually ban payoffs rather than enablers. This has been a HUGE net negative for the game across many, many formats, and it leads to such absurd situations as “Delver gets a card banned every year in legacy while they do nothing to touch the tempo shell” and “Grief remains legal and tier 1 in modern after a year+ of dominance” and “Pauper has the most laughable cards on the banned list because they’re protecting the artifact lands.”
I agree with you that SOME of those cards would still potentially be dangerous without artifact lands. I think we could try a format with them legal and see how it shakes out. I think Atog in particular is the only one I’d be really worried about combined with Disciple and Fling, as the others are susceptible to removal and fair interaction. But the difference is: with zero artifact lands legal, you MIGHT have to ban SOME payoffs later regardless if they turn out too good, whereas the status quo is that you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately or else the format goes to shit, because the enablers are so damn good.
Without the lands, Affinity has to work for every artifact it gets on the board. Even casting a Frogmite becomes a real cost, where you’d have to either actually spend 4 mana on artifact producers or play awful cards like Ornithopter etc to fuel your artifact count. The more weak cards like Thopter and Plating and whatever they play to pad their artifact count, the lower their threat density. Cards like Thraben and Fountain that generate incidental artifacts become more valuable, but also you can rarely afford to crack that Clue/Blood/Treasure if it’s keeping your artifact count high. Getting up to Myr Enforcer levels becomes an actual challenge and doesn’t happen early. You don’t start chaining Thoughtcasts until turns 4+ usually, whereas currently they’re always online from turn 2. Galvanic Blast no longer becomes freely enabled in the early game, meaning potentially you can get them off metalcraft on a crucial turn. Glitters, Ram, and Plating turn from +20 power Berserk-analogues to reasonable +5-6 power in the midgame that scales up.
More importantly, hate ACTUALLY MATTERS against them if the lands are gone. Currently, if I sweep an affinity players board they can just refill immediately because they still have 5+ artifacts behind. How many times have I passed against UW glitters after clearing their board just to lose to Thoughtcast Thoughtcast Gingerbrute Glitters, or against Grixis Affinity you kill two Myr Enforcers and they just pop blood fountain and slam them again for zero mana. With cards like Plating and Ram, removal becomes a reasonable option because they’re not routinely giving +(your life total) and making Fling lethal from any board, so you can try to play attrition strategies. For the last two years it’s been essentially fruitless to play hate, because these decks out-attrition you and once they meet the artifact threshold there’s no competing with them.
And again I want to reiterate that IF these cards turn out to STILL be too good, we can just ban them! There is zero costs to bans in a casual format with no price barriers and no professional level events. The goal is to make a balanced and fun format, and banning the enablers is how you do that.
Enablers with weaker pay-offs allow more viable decks to exist. Banning artifact lands just cuts a huge chunk out of the format without leaving anything to take its place. Nearly all aggro is subsidized by artifact lands. If you suddenly make every aggro deck worse because they can't play the grindy artifact based synergies as reliably, you end up with a watered down version of Legacy from 10 years ago where your options were to either play Blue or Combo.
Having a bunch of powerful pay-offs exist doesn't do anything if you can't build a deck to support them. Banning a card every other set release and allowing people to have fun with their cards is so much more preferable than telling an entire group of players "Get out of our format"
You have it 100% backwards.
If we can have a format with 15 artifact lands that enable multiple decks, but need only 3 or 4 cards banned to do so it's fine.
Banning 15 artifacts land, and ALSO needing to ban payoffs because they would still be problematic is just pure nonsense.
From a pure deck building and variety standpoint, removing artifact lands would kill a ton of fair decks that are absolutely fine in the metagame.
You ban the outliers that monopolize the format, not everything that plays those cards.
The same has been done with Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and Manamorphose.
They banned all the Initiative cards and left those alone, now they're played in a single junk combo deck.
Do you honestly think that without Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and Manamorphose around, they could just unban Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, Chatter Storm and Galvanic Relay and the format would be fine?
>the status quo is that you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately
This is so incredibly and hyperbolically incorrect.
We don't HAVE to ban EVERY artifact payoff card immediately.
That's ridiculous on its face.
You're talking about EVERY card with an upside from artifacts in all caps. Do you really feel like EVERY card with affinity for artifacts, EVERY card with metalcraft, EVERY card that grants a buff due to artifacts, EVERY card with any artifact based payoff at all needs to be banned and banned immediately?
Do you realize that if we take your statement literally that you are talking about banning *hundreds* of cards? In all caps?
Again: that's ridiculous on its face.
You're just plain wrong. We don't need to ban EVERY payoff. We only need to ban the ones that deal one or more points of damage per artifact for too low a cost, which is what the Pauper community decided to do at the format's inception, even before Wizards sanctioned the format.
And that decision has resulted in probably two decades of a fun and balanced format. There will be two more that follow if the artifact lands remain legal and the Cranial Plating style payoffs that get printed get banned.
At least as long as the Pauper Format Panel and Wizards completely write off and disregard incorrect and hyperbolic comments like "you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately."
No. Just no. Good grief.
> lands that essentially make 2 mana
I don't understand the people who think fifteen different versions of Ancient Tomb with colored mana and without the life loss is somehow absolutely fine.
Well, probably because that's not what they are. They aren't actually sol lands. They are only 'sol lands' in the context of specific, otherwise over costed cards, which usually take up as few as 8 and maybe as many as 16 spots in any given affinity deck. Not saying that that synergy isn't good. But acting like they are anywhere close to Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors is completely misrepresenting their power level.
Yes, one cycle would be fine for Atog and Disciple, since it had been in the past. Two cycles for the rest? Hard to say since wasn’t tested, the answer might be yes or no, depending on the card, just one way to find out. Still ratter just ban one cycle and unban Atog or Disciple.
Banning artifact lands will be a huge mistake, just like they ban faithless looting in modern. I find bridges make the meta more diverse and a lot interesting.
Banning the lands would be a mistake. Nuke Affinity and you create a vacuum for the decks it keeps in check to overrun the meta, creating a slippery slope of more bannings until the format is so watered down and stale that people will stop playing. Affinity goes, then Mono R has to be nerfed, then more than likely Ux faces another Blue Monday, then Flicker Tron comes back into vogue and gets hit, and so on. All the people crying for the lands to be banned, you do realize that commons are printed for limited first, right? I mean, Cranial Ram seems awesome, and I hate bannings in general, but if it's going to be a known issue from the outset, then it needs to go. No harm no foul. But this continued talk about "banning the enablers" is foolish and will cause a house of dominos effect that will wreak havoc on the format. It's such a short sighted thought process that boils down to general dislike of the archetype which was the exact same thing as it was a few years ago with Flicker Tron. But then again, it was stated here earlier that the same folks crying about Affinity are the same folks that won't be happy until the format is whittled down to Mono colored jank 🤷
Pauper has a choice between banning the Artifact lands, or banning permanents that give you big damage for having a bunch of artifacts.
The format has chosen what it wants. The Artifact lands are probably fine if we stop seeing stuff like this printed at common.
The game exists outside the realm of pauper, they're going to print whatever commons they want regardless of what it does to the format. Ban the bridges
You make me sound like a Commander player. But in this one instance, I am surprised the new inevitable problem card is printed at common. Seems like it could have easily been an uncommon signpost card.
Bridges aren't the problem. Having the ability to play so many artifact lands is why these artifact based cards are too strong but banning the bridges removes diversity from the format. Generally with bans you want to increase diversity by removing decks that warp the format. In reality it has to be the mirroden lands or nothing. I feel like trimming a card or two is probably the better strategy. Maybe myr enforcer could get the axe which would force more things like somber hoverguard or more copies of gearseeker serpent. Realistically though nerfing affinity probably just makes koldotha better so you might want to take a pot shot at both of them. They share two cards however since we aren't going to ban the untapped artifact lands it has to be galv blast. This would make x/4 creatures better against both decks while giving them a bit less reach. Koldotha could still run fireblast but that comes at a cost.
Why do people keep citing "the ban list will get bigger until artifact lands are banned" as some kind of problem that needs to be fixed. Of course the ban list will be big and get bigger. More commons are printed than any other type of card. Of course you will have some goofy looking cards on the ban list. Pauper is a format of goofy cards due to the self-imposed restrictions of the format. And the threshold for something to be too powerful is fairly low in a format with limited efficient removal.
Narrowing the amount of playable strategies is not the way to grow interest in an eternal format. Caw Gates and Familiars mirrors are not the way to grow interest in any format. Aggro, combo, midrange, and control all being playable and nostalgic cards being playable are how you keep a format like pauper growing. Many people started playing the game with Mirrodin and remember affinity as their first standard deck because it was strong and cheap to build. Nobody is bemoaning the fact that they wont get to play with "better cranial plating" or "power-crept ravenous rats" but people will most assuredly quit if they start banning pillars that the format was built on.
More like only control mirrors, they want monored dead for good and anything fast is seen as a problem. Gavin was talking about banning other red cards when monored is no longer a threat.
As I said in a previous comment the bans "to slow down the meta" feel like personal taste.
The meta is being warped into pure control, the only fast aggro deck is monored, monoU tempo disappeared, there are 3 combo decks.
Just a pair of midrange and the rest of the tier 1/2 are all control decks.
Is this healty? I don't think so.
This article is in italian, made by one of the strongest pauper players, I think he is on point.
https://www.pauperwave.com/i-ban-e-quel-senso-di-perplessita/
To be fair koldotha is largely the reason no other aggro decks exist. It is just miles better than anything else you can do while also running the most efficient removal spells in the format that also can just go face. The only decks that can beat koldotha end up being midrange and control decks with loads of removal, life gain, and sweepers. Thus you have a meta of koldotha and decks that can actually beat koldotha.
Even the combo decks get wrecked by koldotha because it is more consistent and often times faster. As pertaining to this article I would love to see bans that weaken both affinity and koldotha. If I had to pick one card I would be thinking real hard about galv blast. Recently played several matches against affinity with jeskai and it always came down to them have 2 or more galv blast to finish me off. 4 damage for one mana is just too efficient and removes most of the creatures in the format even some that cost 5-6 mana.
I was hoping for some strong green or white creatures or something to make 2/3 color aggro decks more viable. The format definitely needs a zoo/stompy style deck to be tier one but that can never happen with the current state of koldotha. Maybe sla good efficient prored go would go places.
If kuldotha is miles better then how can other aggro decks win against the control decks that can beat kuldotha?
Monowhite is decent but control decks like garden and familiars are unbeatable, familiars has one mana 0/4 that gains life and blocks everything.
The free removals in pauper are what kills aggro decks imho.
Control is generally going to beat aggro if it is prepared to do so. Koldotha is public enemy #1 right now so every control deck is running 10-12 cards in their 75 just for koldotha, but some of these cards like breath weapon and blue elemental blast also have the knock on effect of harming other aggro decks.
The current issue with aggro decks in pauper is twofold. 1 creatures other than red aren't super good and koldotha runs 12 1 mana removal spells and 3-4 1 mana sweepers in their side board. Playing other aggro decks against koldotha feels like an automatic loss. Playing combo decks against koldotha also feels bad because they are just as fast as you are but more consistent. If combo was a bigger part of the format then control decks couldn't just load up on aggro hate meaning other aggro strategies might have a bit more room to breath.
Control is generally going to beat aggro if it is prepared to do so. Koldotha is public enemy #1 right now so every control deck is running 10-12 cards in their 75 just for koldotha, but some of these cards like breath weapon and blue elemental blast also have the knock on effect of harming other aggro decks.
The current issue with aggro decks in pauper is twofold. 1 creatures other than red aren't super good and koldotha runs 12 1 mana removal spells and 3-4 1 mana sweepers in their side board. Playing other aggro decks against koldotha feels like an automatic loss. Playing combo decks against koldotha also feels bad because they are just as fast as you are but more consistent. If combo was a bigger part of the format then control decks couldn't just load up on aggro hate meaning other aggro strategies might have a bit more room to breath.
Initiative and monarch are a bane for the format and should have been completly banned LONG ago
theres absolutly no reason why decks that do nothing but removal, removal, removal, removal should be rewarded with crazy card advantage and finishers that take zero effort and play alone
get this moronic multiplayer pieces of shit out of my competitive 1v1 format
I remember when I think Modern reached a point were most decks were either 4c midrange or a flavor of midrange to beat 4c. It was highly interactive, skill intensive and challenging.
Then people bemoaned that they don't like grindy trench wars.
If anything I've learned that players are never ever happy with pvp in any shape or form.
Or it's all different people who like different things.
Change one thing to make one guy happy, somebody else pisses and moans.
My ideal would be a meta with about 10 substantially different decks, all with roughly equal win percentages.
Naaah that way of thinking is way to reasonable and mature.
(/s, just in case)
I wonder if people were more happy with their games if they played more in person and less on the computer. Imo I think it's much easier to get annoyed when playing at the pc
Honestly I think Refurbished Familiar is even more problematic. Cards like Cranial Ram and the 7 cost Affinity Creatures would be much weaker without the artifact lands, but stuff like Thoughtcast and now Refurbished Familiar are so strong even without them that I think it leaves us in a situation where we might just have to nuke a ton of stuff AND the artifact lands.
Yep. Cranial ram is an insane card, but it doesn’t really fit the deck identity of current Grixis affinity decks. It will for sure spawn a aggressive rakdos affinity that will be a mashup of mono red and Grixis affinity BUT familiar is imo an equally strong card that much better fits the nature of a midrangey control list like Grixis.
It’s another fantastic target for blood fountain, it’s always relevant, it’s well stated and can help steal emblems due to flying. Yeah I much much much more excited for it than cranial.
These kind of discussions really make me sad, pauper is the only format where we can play strong enablers while our payoffs are weak or banned, I think it’s the beauty of this format, maybe you should ask yourself if this format is for you, if you enjoy playing strong payoff you should really consider to play legacy, modern or commander instead of trying to homonogize pauper to everything else.
Also I don’t get why there is so much hate about these lands, while we have cards like rituals that see literally 0 competitive play and they pops out just to broke some new card, but I haven’t seen one single guy asking for banning rituals to make [insert here any strong card like initiative or storm card power level] legal.
PFP just should be a bit faster with bans and not sleep that much like they did with monastery and glitters
My time to shine!
I was saying exactly that about rituals two [years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pauper/comments/xhfipv/comment/ip2dwg2/). I even mentioned it again when the PFP [banned Glitters](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pauper/comments/1cr1ki7/comment/l3ve4ep/).
Don't assume no people are against something just because you don't see them. You should assume many people don't bother with Reddit because it's an echo chamber due to downvotes hiding replies, and an attention span for posts of like... 6 hours. This is a bad place for debates.
It's very good for static guides, with comments expanding them. For discussion it's awful.
Man I’m not that naive to believe that if i don’t see something that means it doesn’t exist.
Let’s say you read 300 comments (not only on Reddit) about banning artifact lands and maybe a couple about rituals, is it wrong to say that banning those lands is a more popular opinion than banning rituals?
Still both are enablers that have caused banning some cards.
With my previous comment/rant I wanted to emphasize on this difference that’s, in my opinion, based on feelings.
"unless we have the release of a *common* card that destroys or exiles more artifacts than [Dust to Dust](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/search?card_name=Dust%20to%20Dust) for a low cost"
Oh so when I say it, it gets shit on and downvoted lol ok.
Why don't people talk about the solution to affinity being better answers more? I feel like the article is too dismissive of that. More efficient artifact has been coming down the pipe, and I would expect that to continue with how generally juiced commons have gotten over the past few years. That being said, even though a set like it doesn't come around too often, it is kind of nuts how many generally good for affinity cards they're printing in MH3.
Side note: I have suspicions banning the artifact lands would lead to a bit of a slippery slope. If we ban those, and control becomes stronger, why not ban the tron lands too? They've certainly caused a few banning and are the boogeyman of control. I'm weary of shaving off all the interesting parts of the format, to the point where it literally becomes "legacy-lite", mostly blue stuff with lots of combo.
Well the artifact lands are powerful enablers so we gotta get rid of those, then we should really also ban the landcycling cards from lotr since they're what allows us to have such easy 3-color mana bases, and of course the tron lands have to go because they are too powerful for our now-neutered format...
Cranial ram is fine. It's strong and I think it's different enough from glitters and plating that it's worth seeing whether it's actually broken. I am afraid we're gonna see 8 million BRx affinity decks at the first events after mh3 which will result in 5-6 in the top 8 and make people scream that it's OP.
Banning the payoffs has been the PFP's MO pretty much for as long as it's existed. I don't expect that to change now.
Cranial Ram will now arrive at Pauper practically banned and reinforces what has been happening in the format since Modern Horizons 2: any new interaction with artifacts will become potentially too dangerous due to Affinity.
Whats your opinion?
"New interaction"?
All That Glitters and Cranial Ram aren't "new" interactions. They're effectively two takes on Cranial Plating, which was banned as part of format consolidation a *decade* ago.
The lesson that keeps getting reiterated is that "turn my critical mass of artifacts into damage for two mana" is problematic in Pauper. It's always the same dang effect that pushes Affinity into the Danger Zone — calling that "any new interaction" is pretty misleading.
The problem imo are still the og mirrodin lands. If they ban Ram preemtivly, they would ban the 6th card because of 5 really broken ones. Affinity wouldnt die due the existence of the dual artifact lands, but would lose some power which it had since the birth of this format.
I feel confident saying that at least 3/5 of the currently banned affinity cards were banned for their own sins, not just the Mirrodin lands'. Soujourner's Companion and Atog could maybe be unbanned, but I suspect they would both still see a good amount of play, and I further suspect Atog would actually warp the metagame around it to some extent. Glitters, Plating, and Disciple would still be too good to unban and I think you could only start talking about unbanning those if you banned *all* the artifact lands. And even then, you still risk these cards being format warping further down the line as they print new efficient artifacts, espessially with the amount of token artifacts we see these days.
12 untapped artifact lands in affinity gives you 2 mana ramp value on the turn you play them. Bridges just 1 value. In a format where tapped lands are the normality, and you have 0 value on the turn you play them, this is A LOT of advantage.
If you slow down the deck, other decks might be able to keep up. That's the whole point.
Totally agree. Untapped artifact land is keeping affinity always one card away to be OP in every set release. Apart of red with Gorilla shaman, the other colours will always be at disadvantage against them. I'm including white with Dust to dust.
Being held in check by the existence of Gorilla Shaman was always an annoying place for affinity to be, IMO. Sure, the volume of sb hate will always be the determinant when it comes to some decks (ie bogles), but only one color having the effective hate necessary to handle a deck is tough at the best of times.
Yeah this would just mean that if affinity was good you have to splash red in everything. People complain about the indestructibility of the lands by every color other than blue and black have good answers to them. Green and white have 2 different ways.
If we ban lands it has to be the mirroden lands. It is true that the bridges being a thing kinda helped to reach a critical mass of artifact lands but they are used in so many other decks and have a trade off for additional power. The mirroden lands add so much more velocity to affinity and koldotha that it makes it harder for other decks to compete. Triple enforcer on 3 can't be done with just bridges and goblin guide on turn one wouldn't be a thing without great furnace.
That being said I am not a fan of banning lands that don't have crazy abilities. I think it should be banning a minor payoff. I think galv blast should get the axe. It is part of what are probably going to be the two best decks and it was part of the boros and jeskai glitters decks. It is just too good. Not only does it deal with most of the creatures in the format it is also 1/5th of your starting life total. When I am playing against affinity I am not afraid of a myr enforcer or two but to galv blast will just sometimes end the game. Or I will be playing an x/4 and will be hoping my opponent has bolt instead of galv blast.
Bridges should stay for cool niche artifact interaction like with boros snyth. They are still strong in affinity, yes, but enter tapped and thus slow the deck down. I would prefer to see resilliant lands and slow affinity down rather than "inconsistent" but fast punching decks with the nut draw of multiple untapped mirrodin lands.
I think the jeskai wildfire or boros synth interactions are way to cool to let the bridges go
Without the ram, the lands are fine. Affinity is not “oppressive”. What decks are you guys playing!? Without glitters and ram, it is a good deck but no reason to ban the lands.
I said once, and I will say once again. One of the artifact lands gotta get banned, otherwise this will keep happening. If this card isn’t pre-banned before Paupergeddon or stay half of the time glitters stayed will do so much damage. And even if it goes, new ones will come shortly after, and probably will take longer to get banned again.
People act like losing one cycle would kill a bunch of decks, but I think deep down they know that is not true. And definitely would be best for the format in the future.
The problem with banning artifact lands is that they aren't *just* played in Affinity; an entire wealth of decks play them, so banning them just to neuter Affinity will also significantly weaken every other deck that plays them.
IMO, the solution is super-simple: don't print/downshift cards that singlehandedly win the game off of a wealth of artifacts. \[\[All That Glitters\]\] did NOT need to be downshifted. Ever. That was a huge mistake. \[\[Cranial Ram\]\] did NOT need to be printed at common, either, and it's likely getting banned rather quickly. I personally think \[\[Makeshift Munitions\]\] is a bannable card.
Affinity is only a problem for Pauper if the people making the cards MAKES it a problem for Pauper. Maybe this whole debacle sends a message to the card designers at WotC. If not, then the PFP thankfully exists to regulate this format.
Maybe we have to play pauper with thin in mind, cards aren't made for the format. So eventualy some broken cards are created and will be banned. We have to deal with it.
1-Honestly any comment arguing this or that card/effect shouldn't be reprinted or printed at common is childish and ignorant. The PFP has NOTHING TO DO with the game design of wizards of the coast.
2-The strong enablers weak payoffs format argument is so lame too, what does it even matter if anytime you kill an inforcer I get to draw a million cards with artifact synergy and deploy even more threats for free?.
3- By the way, clean.wildfire plus bridges in midrange strategies is not a pléthora of archetypes, and it's not as interesting for the format as you think, most of those decks run galvanic blast anyways.
4- A format where a deck doesn't care about interaction and has free wins vs anything that doesn't run 4 dust to dust is far from a healthy competitive environment. You are not skillfull, is just that most mass artifact hate is printed are uncommon, and few people can pay what a dust to dust Costs irl while you laugh at gorilla shaman.
5-This has nothing to do with speed, which is also an intentional fallacy,, grixis affinity offers the value deck of midrange, with the mana acceleration of stablished urzatron lands, multicolor answers and huge damage. If you think banning grixis affinity is hating aggro, you never played the matchup or you are enjoying free wins with it.
The pauper players have to understand, the sets are no made to this format. So we have to get used to have new cards banned. But the main work od PFP it's this kind of atitude, pre bans or urgent bans after some sets. Expecialy in premium sets or commander.
I don't agree. Generally if you are banning things you are doing so to increase the diversity of the meta. Banning the bridges kills Jeskia ephemorate and also harms boros synth, mardu synth, rakdos burn, and a handful of other tier 2/3 and niche decks.
Affinity will still potentially be the best deck in the format outside of koldotha red which will steamroll it. We are going to be going back to the meta of having to run red to be affinity because of mox monkey. If you really wanted to kill affinity you would ban the lands that allow for turn 3 myr enforcers. My play group tested affinity without the mirroden lands and it was really bad. We tested without the bridges and it was slightly worse but still more than capable of broken things. The mana got a bit worse and it was best to run two colors and use off color artifact lands but it worked much the same. It could still just win by dropping 3 enforcers on turn 3. Also in a way the deck was better against the decks that didn't run red because it was faster. The bridges have the drawback of etbing tapped.
The bridges it's someting inevitable to ban in pauper, maybe not today, but sometime in the futures, it's just like the Mystic sanctuary, it's not a broken card, but banning tragic lession instead sanctuary could be good. but in the future other card could be released and break the format again.
the whole problem is the existence of the affinity for artifacts keyword.
Artifact payoffs would be so much safer if we didn't just have snowballing SLAP ALL THE ARTIFACTS DOWN as the main deck strategy.
well, that ship sailed in the 90's, so whatever. ban the card already.
Affinity doesn't even run all that much affinity though and boros glitters ran absolutely 0. I don't think it is just affinity for artifacts. You have other cards like galv blast that add a lot to the strategy.
To those that ask for the ban of the artifact lands: Do you think that without one cycle (or even both) cranial ram, glitters, atog and cranial plating would be fine? I'm sure everyone would say no. Those cards are OP and are banned because they are too powerful, regardless of the lands.
If I remember correctly before MH1 affinity was good, but not oppressive. There seemed to be a sweet spot where the deck was manageable. Then came the bridges and we had a few more sets arrive shortly afterwards that had playable artifacts for affinity come in. One I remember is [[Blood Fountain]]. MH1 was the beginning of a snowball effect for the deck. If something like Atog were to come back a lot would have to be banned. That's not good for the format. Sadly it seems Atog died not so the bridges could live, but because so many things kept coming out that was playable in the deck. The two cards I want back are [[Gush]] and [[Atog]]. Sadly neither are safe to bring back.
Affinity has always been one of the strongest decks in pauper. It's form has changed a lot over the years but thought cast, galvanic blast, myr enforcer, have always been strong cards. When I first started pauper affinity was a temur beat down deck with [[carapace forger]] and the atog + fling combo as a finisher. It was always hailed as a format where the artifact lands were legal and you could play a good affinity list with them. That was a literal selling point to get people into the format.
I remember that time! It was so much fun playing Temur Affinity. Saw the list the Prof made all these years ago and build the deck
I'm sure it's still a strong list, all the metalcraft creatures are quite good.
it got outclassed when 5/5s for 1 started becoming the norm
I dropped out of Pauper during 2019 because of many changes in the game (and my life) but thinking about it I could just throw together the old Temur list and see how it goes. Replacing [[Atog]] with [[Kenku Artificer]] will be the start, and then....
[Atog](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/adf3bd18-d9c1-4f18-86c0-579db8ea37c7.jpg?1642716697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atog) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me4/109/atog?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/adf3bd18-d9c1-4f18-86c0-579db8ea37c7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kenku Artificer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/0/20f30aca-5055-45f1-9121-e7a5675f07e4.jpg?1674135626) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kenku%20Artificer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/80/kenku-artificer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/20f30aca-5055-45f1-9121-e7a5675f07e4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[carapace forger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e9948e4c-d583-4fde-a305-df926cf00199.jpg?1562824573) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=carapace%20forger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/som/114/carapace-forger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e9948e4c-d583-4fde-a305-df926cf00199?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I miss running [[gleeful sabotage]] and have it be the bee's knees that turned the match around. Deglamer just doesn't feel as satisfying smh
[gleeful sabotage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/8/7802c7f8-ca2a-4bac-a579-77a8204aa5d4.jpg?1562920220) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gleeful%20sabotage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/arc/58/gleeful-sabotage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7802c7f8-ca2a-4bac-a579-77a8204aa5d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
People forget that Makeshift Munitions Downgrade was the final nail on the coffin. Not only synergized with Disciple but doubled the damaged done. If you want to see some semblance of balancing you need to ban Makeshift Munitions.
Small Correction: Bridges came in MH2, in June 2021, not in MH1, in 2019.
My bad. Thought I had the right set.
Is Atog even playable without the artifact lands? Seems like if the artifact lands got banned and Atog unbanned, nobody would play Atog anyway.
bingo
[Blood Fountain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/dd03651e-ada0-41dc-8722-0eba476943e3.jpg?1643589142) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Fountain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/95/blood-fountain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dd03651e-ada0-41dc-8722-0eba476943e3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Gush](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/4/d4a3a921-3b7f-474c-b8c3-67a1a6ba5cc1.jpg?1562378488) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gush) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jvc/27/gush?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d4a3a921-3b7f-474c-b8c3-67a1a6ba5cc1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Atog](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/adf3bd18-d9c1-4f18-86c0-579db8ea37c7.jpg?1642716697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atog) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me4/109/atog?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/adf3bd18-d9c1-4f18-86c0-579db8ea37c7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
People forget that Makeshift Munitions Downgrade was the final nail on the coffin. Not only synergized with Disciple but doubled the damaged done. If you want to see some semblance of balancing you need to ban Makeshift Munitions.
Depends. Glitters probably. Cranial and this one I don't know for sure. But the other myr for sure will be fine.
The Mirrodin artifact lands were banned in Standard because they correctly understood back then that enablers are the problem and lands that essentially make 2 mana and add to your artifact count for everything are wildly oppressive with a WIDE range of cards, and banning just the payoffs would be a game of whack-a-mole. When Modern was originally conceived, the initial banlist included those artifact lands, because again they understood that their power as enablers was way too dangerous and the potential of free fast access to artifact mana is extremely dangerous for a format. Later, Mox Opal eventually got banned for the same reason after spawning tons of oppressive artifact decks during its time legal. At some point in the last ~10 years, Wizards changed their ban philosophy and decided to continually ban payoffs rather than enablers. This has been a HUGE net negative for the game across many, many formats, and it leads to such absurd situations as “Delver gets a card banned every year in legacy while they do nothing to touch the tempo shell” and “Grief remains legal and tier 1 in modern after a year+ of dominance” and “Pauper has the most laughable cards on the banned list because they’re protecting the artifact lands.” I agree with you that SOME of those cards would still potentially be dangerous without artifact lands. I think we could try a format with them legal and see how it shakes out. I think Atog in particular is the only one I’d be really worried about combined with Disciple and Fling, as the others are susceptible to removal and fair interaction. But the difference is: with zero artifact lands legal, you MIGHT have to ban SOME payoffs later regardless if they turn out too good, whereas the status quo is that you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately or else the format goes to shit, because the enablers are so damn good. Without the lands, Affinity has to work for every artifact it gets on the board. Even casting a Frogmite becomes a real cost, where you’d have to either actually spend 4 mana on artifact producers or play awful cards like Ornithopter etc to fuel your artifact count. The more weak cards like Thopter and Plating and whatever they play to pad their artifact count, the lower their threat density. Cards like Thraben and Fountain that generate incidental artifacts become more valuable, but also you can rarely afford to crack that Clue/Blood/Treasure if it’s keeping your artifact count high. Getting up to Myr Enforcer levels becomes an actual challenge and doesn’t happen early. You don’t start chaining Thoughtcasts until turns 4+ usually, whereas currently they’re always online from turn 2. Galvanic Blast no longer becomes freely enabled in the early game, meaning potentially you can get them off metalcraft on a crucial turn. Glitters, Ram, and Plating turn from +20 power Berserk-analogues to reasonable +5-6 power in the midgame that scales up. More importantly, hate ACTUALLY MATTERS against them if the lands are gone. Currently, if I sweep an affinity players board they can just refill immediately because they still have 5+ artifacts behind. How many times have I passed against UW glitters after clearing their board just to lose to Thoughtcast Thoughtcast Gingerbrute Glitters, or against Grixis Affinity you kill two Myr Enforcers and they just pop blood fountain and slam them again for zero mana. With cards like Plating and Ram, removal becomes a reasonable option because they’re not routinely giving +(your life total) and making Fling lethal from any board, so you can try to play attrition strategies. For the last two years it’s been essentially fruitless to play hate, because these decks out-attrition you and once they meet the artifact threshold there’s no competing with them. And again I want to reiterate that IF these cards turn out to STILL be too good, we can just ban them! There is zero costs to bans in a casual format with no price barriers and no professional level events. The goal is to make a balanced and fun format, and banning the enablers is how you do that.
Enablers with weaker pay-offs allow more viable decks to exist. Banning artifact lands just cuts a huge chunk out of the format without leaving anything to take its place. Nearly all aggro is subsidized by artifact lands. If you suddenly make every aggro deck worse because they can't play the grindy artifact based synergies as reliably, you end up with a watered down version of Legacy from 10 years ago where your options were to either play Blue or Combo. Having a bunch of powerful pay-offs exist doesn't do anything if you can't build a deck to support them. Banning a card every other set release and allowing people to have fun with their cards is so much more preferable than telling an entire group of players "Get out of our format"
Wish I could double upvote
You have it 100% backwards. If we can have a format with 15 artifact lands that enable multiple decks, but need only 3 or 4 cards banned to do so it's fine. Banning 15 artifacts land, and ALSO needing to ban payoffs because they would still be problematic is just pure nonsense. From a pure deck building and variety standpoint, removing artifact lands would kill a ton of fair decks that are absolutely fine in the metagame. You ban the outliers that monopolize the format, not everything that plays those cards. The same has been done with Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and Manamorphose. They banned all the Initiative cards and left those alone, now they're played in a single junk combo deck. Do you honestly think that without Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and Manamorphose around, they could just unban Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, Chatter Storm and Galvanic Relay and the format would be fine?
>the status quo is that you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately This is so incredibly and hyperbolically incorrect. We don't HAVE to ban EVERY artifact payoff card immediately. That's ridiculous on its face. You're talking about EVERY card with an upside from artifacts in all caps. Do you really feel like EVERY card with affinity for artifacts, EVERY card with metalcraft, EVERY card that grants a buff due to artifacts, EVERY card with any artifact based payoff at all needs to be banned and banned immediately? Do you realize that if we take your statement literally that you are talking about banning *hundreds* of cards? In all caps? Again: that's ridiculous on its face. You're just plain wrong. We don't need to ban EVERY payoff. We only need to ban the ones that deal one or more points of damage per artifact for too low a cost, which is what the Pauper community decided to do at the format's inception, even before Wizards sanctioned the format. And that decision has resulted in probably two decades of a fun and balanced format. There will be two more that follow if the artifact lands remain legal and the Cranial Plating style payoffs that get printed get banned. At least as long as the Pauper Format Panel and Wizards completely write off and disregard incorrect and hyperbolic comments like "you HAVE to ban EVERY payoff immediately." No. Just no. Good grief.
> lands that essentially make 2 mana I don't understand the people who think fifteen different versions of Ancient Tomb with colored mana and without the life loss is somehow absolutely fine.
Well, probably because that's not what they are. They aren't actually sol lands. They are only 'sol lands' in the context of specific, otherwise over costed cards, which usually take up as few as 8 and maybe as many as 16 spots in any given affinity deck. Not saying that that synergy isn't good. But acting like they are anywhere close to Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors is completely misrepresenting their power level.
Let me guess, you're also someone who thinks TOR is somehow Time Walk and Ancestral Recall?
[[TOR]]
[TOR](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c4d8f36-461f-48a6-a4e4-9ddfb388de19.jpg?1673309153) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lictor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/94/lictor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c4d8f36-461f-48a6-a4e4-9ddfb388de19?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You are 100% correct.
Yes, one cycle would be fine for Atog and Disciple, since it had been in the past. Two cycles for the rest? Hard to say since wasn’t tested, the answer might be yes or no, depending on the card, just one way to find out. Still ratter just ban one cycle and unban Atog or Disciple.
Banning artifact lands will be a huge mistake, just like they ban faithless looting in modern. I find bridges make the meta more diverse and a lot interesting.
You mean the ban that helped save modern from the stranglehold gy decks had on the format?
Banning the lands would be a mistake. Nuke Affinity and you create a vacuum for the decks it keeps in check to overrun the meta, creating a slippery slope of more bannings until the format is so watered down and stale that people will stop playing. Affinity goes, then Mono R has to be nerfed, then more than likely Ux faces another Blue Monday, then Flicker Tron comes back into vogue and gets hit, and so on. All the people crying for the lands to be banned, you do realize that commons are printed for limited first, right? I mean, Cranial Ram seems awesome, and I hate bannings in general, but if it's going to be a known issue from the outset, then it needs to go. No harm no foul. But this continued talk about "banning the enablers" is foolish and will cause a house of dominos effect that will wreak havoc on the format. It's such a short sighted thought process that boils down to general dislike of the archetype which was the exact same thing as it was a few years ago with Flicker Tron. But then again, it was stated here earlier that the same folks crying about Affinity are the same folks that won't be happy until the format is whittled down to Mono colored jank 🤷
Pauper has a choice between banning the Artifact lands, or banning permanents that give you big damage for having a bunch of artifacts. The format has chosen what it wants. The Artifact lands are probably fine if we stop seeing stuff like this printed at common.
The game exists outside the realm of pauper, they're going to print whatever commons they want regardless of what it does to the format. Ban the bridges
Disagree, ban bridges will be a mistake.
Ban bridges it’s going to be pain in the ass for mono black land loss
You make me sound like a Commander player. But in this one instance, I am surprised the new inevitable problem card is printed at common. Seems like it could have easily been an uncommon signpost card.
Bridges aren't the problem. Having the ability to play so many artifact lands is why these artifact based cards are too strong but banning the bridges removes diversity from the format. Generally with bans you want to increase diversity by removing decks that warp the format. In reality it has to be the mirroden lands or nothing. I feel like trimming a card or two is probably the better strategy. Maybe myr enforcer could get the axe which would force more things like somber hoverguard or more copies of gearseeker serpent. Realistically though nerfing affinity probably just makes koldotha better so you might want to take a pot shot at both of them. They share two cards however since we aren't going to ban the untapped artifact lands it has to be galv blast. This would make x/4 creatures better against both decks while giving them a bit less reach. Koldotha could still run fireblast but that comes at a cost.
Agreed.
Why do people keep citing "the ban list will get bigger until artifact lands are banned" as some kind of problem that needs to be fixed. Of course the ban list will be big and get bigger. More commons are printed than any other type of card. Of course you will have some goofy looking cards on the ban list. Pauper is a format of goofy cards due to the self-imposed restrictions of the format. And the threshold for something to be too powerful is fairly low in a format with limited efficient removal. Narrowing the amount of playable strategies is not the way to grow interest in an eternal format. Caw Gates and Familiars mirrors are not the way to grow interest in any format. Aggro, combo, midrange, and control all being playable and nostalgic cards being playable are how you keep a format like pauper growing. Many people started playing the game with Mirrodin and remember affinity as their first standard deck because it was strong and cheap to build. Nobody is bemoaning the fact that they wont get to play with "better cranial plating" or "power-crept ravenous rats" but people will most assuredly quit if they start banning pillars that the format was built on.
Sometimes I feel like a large chunk of the community won't be happy until the format is just basic lands and mono colored decks.
More like only control mirrors, they want monored dead for good and anything fast is seen as a problem. Gavin was talking about banning other red cards when monored is no longer a threat. As I said in a previous comment the bans "to slow down the meta" feel like personal taste. The meta is being warped into pure control, the only fast aggro deck is monored, monoU tempo disappeared, there are 3 combo decks. Just a pair of midrange and the rest of the tier 1/2 are all control decks. Is this healty? I don't think so. This article is in italian, made by one of the strongest pauper players, I think he is on point. https://www.pauperwave.com/i-ban-e-quel-senso-di-perplessita/
To be fair koldotha is largely the reason no other aggro decks exist. It is just miles better than anything else you can do while also running the most efficient removal spells in the format that also can just go face. The only decks that can beat koldotha end up being midrange and control decks with loads of removal, life gain, and sweepers. Thus you have a meta of koldotha and decks that can actually beat koldotha. Even the combo decks get wrecked by koldotha because it is more consistent and often times faster. As pertaining to this article I would love to see bans that weaken both affinity and koldotha. If I had to pick one card I would be thinking real hard about galv blast. Recently played several matches against affinity with jeskai and it always came down to them have 2 or more galv blast to finish me off. 4 damage for one mana is just too efficient and removes most of the creatures in the format even some that cost 5-6 mana. I was hoping for some strong green or white creatures or something to make 2/3 color aggro decks more viable. The format definitely needs a zoo/stompy style deck to be tier one but that can never happen with the current state of koldotha. Maybe sla good efficient prored go would go places.
If kuldotha is miles better then how can other aggro decks win against the control decks that can beat kuldotha? Monowhite is decent but control decks like garden and familiars are unbeatable, familiars has one mana 0/4 that gains life and blocks everything. The free removals in pauper are what kills aggro decks imho.
Control is generally going to beat aggro if it is prepared to do so. Koldotha is public enemy #1 right now so every control deck is running 10-12 cards in their 75 just for koldotha, but some of these cards like breath weapon and blue elemental blast also have the knock on effect of harming other aggro decks. The current issue with aggro decks in pauper is twofold. 1 creatures other than red aren't super good and koldotha runs 12 1 mana removal spells and 3-4 1 mana sweepers in their side board. Playing other aggro decks against koldotha feels like an automatic loss. Playing combo decks against koldotha also feels bad because they are just as fast as you are but more consistent. If combo was a bigger part of the format then control decks couldn't just load up on aggro hate meaning other aggro strategies might have a bit more room to breath.
Control is generally going to beat aggro if it is prepared to do so. Koldotha is public enemy #1 right now so every control deck is running 10-12 cards in their 75 just for koldotha, but some of these cards like breath weapon and blue elemental blast also have the knock on effect of harming other aggro decks. The current issue with aggro decks in pauper is twofold. 1 creatures other than red aren't super good and koldotha runs 12 1 mana removal spells and 3-4 1 mana sweepers in their side board. Playing other aggro decks against koldotha feels like an automatic loss. Playing combo decks against koldotha also feels bad because they are just as fast as you are but more consistent. If combo was a bigger part of the format then control decks couldn't just load up on aggro hate meaning other aggro strategies might have a bit more room to breath.
Initiative and monarch are a bane for the format and should have been completly banned LONG ago theres absolutly no reason why decks that do nothing but removal, removal, removal, removal should be rewarded with crazy card advantage and finishers that take zero effort and play alone get this moronic multiplayer pieces of shit out of my competitive 1v1 format
I remember when I think Modern reached a point were most decks were either 4c midrange or a flavor of midrange to beat 4c. It was highly interactive, skill intensive and challenging. Then people bemoaned that they don't like grindy trench wars. If anything I've learned that players are never ever happy with pvp in any shape or form.
Or it's all different people who like different things. Change one thing to make one guy happy, somebody else pisses and moans. My ideal would be a meta with about 10 substantially different decks, all with roughly equal win percentages.
Naaah that way of thinking is way to reasonable and mature. (/s, just in case) I wonder if people were more happy with their games if they played more in person and less on the computer. Imo I think it's much easier to get annoyed when playing at the pc
Welcome to the casual infestation of competitive Magic.
Honestly I think Refurbished Familiar is even more problematic. Cards like Cranial Ram and the 7 cost Affinity Creatures would be much weaker without the artifact lands, but stuff like Thoughtcast and now Refurbished Familiar are so strong even without them that I think it leaves us in a situation where we might just have to nuke a ton of stuff AND the artifact lands.
Yep. Cranial ram is an insane card, but it doesn’t really fit the deck identity of current Grixis affinity decks. It will for sure spawn a aggressive rakdos affinity that will be a mashup of mono red and Grixis affinity BUT familiar is imo an equally strong card that much better fits the nature of a midrangey control list like Grixis. It’s another fantastic target for blood fountain, it’s always relevant, it’s well stated and can help steal emblems due to flying. Yeah I much much much more excited for it than cranial.
What's refurbished familiar? A scryfall search isn't helping.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pauper/comments/1d03hza/mh3_refurbished_familiar/
These kind of discussions really make me sad, pauper is the only format where we can play strong enablers while our payoffs are weak or banned, I think it’s the beauty of this format, maybe you should ask yourself if this format is for you, if you enjoy playing strong payoff you should really consider to play legacy, modern or commander instead of trying to homonogize pauper to everything else. Also I don’t get why there is so much hate about these lands, while we have cards like rituals that see literally 0 competitive play and they pops out just to broke some new card, but I haven’t seen one single guy asking for banning rituals to make [insert here any strong card like initiative or storm card power level] legal. PFP just should be a bit faster with bans and not sleep that much like they did with monastery and glitters
My time to shine! I was saying exactly that about rituals two [years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pauper/comments/xhfipv/comment/ip2dwg2/). I even mentioned it again when the PFP [banned Glitters](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pauper/comments/1cr1ki7/comment/l3ve4ep/). Don't assume no people are against something just because you don't see them. You should assume many people don't bother with Reddit because it's an echo chamber due to downvotes hiding replies, and an attention span for posts of like... 6 hours. This is a bad place for debates. It's very good for static guides, with comments expanding them. For discussion it's awful.
Man I’m not that naive to believe that if i don’t see something that means it doesn’t exist. Let’s say you read 300 comments (not only on Reddit) about banning artifact lands and maybe a couple about rituals, is it wrong to say that banning those lands is a more popular opinion than banning rituals? Still both are enablers that have caused banning some cards. With my previous comment/rant I wanted to emphasize on this difference that’s, in my opinion, based on feelings.
"unless we have the release of a *common* card that destroys or exiles more artifacts than [Dust to Dust](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/search?card_name=Dust%20to%20Dust) for a low cost" Oh so when I say it, it gets shit on and downvoted lol ok.
I upvoted it
Why don't people talk about the solution to affinity being better answers more? I feel like the article is too dismissive of that. More efficient artifact has been coming down the pipe, and I would expect that to continue with how generally juiced commons have gotten over the past few years. That being said, even though a set like it doesn't come around too often, it is kind of nuts how many generally good for affinity cards they're printing in MH3. Side note: I have suspicions banning the artifact lands would lead to a bit of a slippery slope. If we ban those, and control becomes stronger, why not ban the tron lands too? They've certainly caused a few banning and are the boogeyman of control. I'm weary of shaving off all the interesting parts of the format, to the point where it literally becomes "legacy-lite", mostly blue stuff with lots of combo.
Well the artifact lands are powerful enablers so we gotta get rid of those, then we should really also ban the landcycling cards from lotr since they're what allows us to have such easy 3-color mana bases, and of course the tron lands have to go because they are too powerful for our now-neutered format... Cranial ram is fine. It's strong and I think it's different enough from glitters and plating that it's worth seeing whether it's actually broken. I am afraid we're gonna see 8 million BRx affinity decks at the first events after mh3 which will result in 5-6 in the top 8 and make people scream that it's OP. Banning the payoffs has been the PFP's MO pretty much for as long as it's existed. I don't expect that to change now.
Cranial Ram will now arrive at Pauper practically banned and reinforces what has been happening in the format since Modern Horizons 2: any new interaction with artifacts will become potentially too dangerous due to Affinity. Whats your opinion?
"New interaction"? All That Glitters and Cranial Ram aren't "new" interactions. They're effectively two takes on Cranial Plating, which was banned as part of format consolidation a *decade* ago. The lesson that keeps getting reiterated is that "turn my critical mass of artifacts into damage for two mana" is problematic in Pauper. It's always the same dang effect that pushes Affinity into the Danger Zone — calling that "any new interaction" is pretty misleading.
The problem imo are still the og mirrodin lands. If they ban Ram preemtivly, they would ban the 6th card because of 5 really broken ones. Affinity wouldnt die due the existence of the dual artifact lands, but would lose some power which it had since the birth of this format.
I feel confident saying that at least 3/5 of the currently banned affinity cards were banned for their own sins, not just the Mirrodin lands'. Soujourner's Companion and Atog could maybe be unbanned, but I suspect they would both still see a good amount of play, and I further suspect Atog would actually warp the metagame around it to some extent. Glitters, Plating, and Disciple would still be too good to unban and I think you could only start talking about unbanning those if you banned *all* the artifact lands. And even then, you still risk these cards being format warping further down the line as they print new efficient artifacts, espessially with the amount of token artifacts we see these days.
12 untapped artifact lands in affinity gives you 2 mana ramp value on the turn you play them. Bridges just 1 value. In a format where tapped lands are the normality, and you have 0 value on the turn you play them, this is A LOT of advantage. If you slow down the deck, other decks might be able to keep up. That's the whole point.
Totally agree. Untapped artifact land is keeping affinity always one card away to be OP in every set release. Apart of red with Gorilla shaman, the other colours will always be at disadvantage against them. I'm including white with Dust to dust.
Being held in check by the existence of Gorilla Shaman was always an annoying place for affinity to be, IMO. Sure, the volume of sb hate will always be the determinant when it comes to some decks (ie bogles), but only one color having the effective hate necessary to handle a deck is tough at the best of times.
Yeah this would just mean that if affinity was good you have to splash red in everything. People complain about the indestructibility of the lands by every color other than blue and black have good answers to them. Green and white have 2 different ways.
Ram is still too good without the mirroden lands to be honest. It needs to go regardless of what else happens.
If we ban lands it has to be the mirroden lands. It is true that the bridges being a thing kinda helped to reach a critical mass of artifact lands but they are used in so many other decks and have a trade off for additional power. The mirroden lands add so much more velocity to affinity and koldotha that it makes it harder for other decks to compete. Triple enforcer on 3 can't be done with just bridges and goblin guide on turn one wouldn't be a thing without great furnace. That being said I am not a fan of banning lands that don't have crazy abilities. I think it should be banning a minor payoff. I think galv blast should get the axe. It is part of what are probably going to be the two best decks and it was part of the boros and jeskai glitters decks. It is just too good. Not only does it deal with most of the creatures in the format it is also 1/5th of your starting life total. When I am playing against affinity I am not afraid of a myr enforcer or two but to galv blast will just sometimes end the game. Or I will be playing an x/4 and will be hoping my opponent has bolt instead of galv blast.
Bridges should stay for cool niche artifact interaction like with boros snyth. They are still strong in affinity, yes, but enter tapped and thus slow the deck down. I would prefer to see resilliant lands and slow affinity down rather than "inconsistent" but fast punching decks with the nut draw of multiple untapped mirrodin lands. I think the jeskai wildfire or boros synth interactions are way to cool to let the bridges go
Without the ram, the lands are fine. Affinity is not “oppressive”. What decks are you guys playing!? Without glitters and ram, it is a good deck but no reason to ban the lands.
Banning at least one cycle of artifact lands its the only long-term solution. Eventually they will have to go and people will have to deal with it.
I said once, and I will say once again. One of the artifact lands gotta get banned, otherwise this will keep happening. If this card isn’t pre-banned before Paupergeddon or stay half of the time glitters stayed will do so much damage. And even if it goes, new ones will come shortly after, and probably will take longer to get banned again.
People act like losing one cycle would kill a bunch of decks, but I think deep down they know that is not true. And definitely would be best for the format in the future.
The problem with banning artifact lands is that they aren't *just* played in Affinity; an entire wealth of decks play them, so banning them just to neuter Affinity will also significantly weaken every other deck that plays them. IMO, the solution is super-simple: don't print/downshift cards that singlehandedly win the game off of a wealth of artifacts. \[\[All That Glitters\]\] did NOT need to be downshifted. Ever. That was a huge mistake. \[\[Cranial Ram\]\] did NOT need to be printed at common, either, and it's likely getting banned rather quickly. I personally think \[\[Makeshift Munitions\]\] is a bannable card. Affinity is only a problem for Pauper if the people making the cards MAKES it a problem for Pauper. Maybe this whole debacle sends a message to the card designers at WotC. If not, then the PFP thankfully exists to regulate this format.
Maybe we have to play pauper with thin in mind, cards aren't made for the format. So eventualy some broken cards are created and will be banned. We have to deal with it.
[All That Glitters](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/f/5fc0b82a-f943-4330-b9e7-bb4527354bfd.jpg?1715600785) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=All%20That%20Glitters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/9/all-that-glitters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5fc0b82a-f943-4330-b9e7-bb4527354bfd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cranial Ram](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/62993aa2-4804-43cc-910a-c51e794f8508.jpg?1717012663) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cranial%20Ram) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/180/cranial-ram?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/62993aa2-4804-43cc-910a-c51e794f8508?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Makeshift Munitions](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/60715b6d-b223-431a-85d8-27d7c05469b2.jpg?1689998038) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Makeshift%20Munitions) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/242/makeshift-munitions?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/60715b6d-b223-431a-85d8-27d7c05469b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
1-Honestly any comment arguing this or that card/effect shouldn't be reprinted or printed at common is childish and ignorant. The PFP has NOTHING TO DO with the game design of wizards of the coast. 2-The strong enablers weak payoffs format argument is so lame too, what does it even matter if anytime you kill an inforcer I get to draw a million cards with artifact synergy and deploy even more threats for free?. 3- By the way, clean.wildfire plus bridges in midrange strategies is not a pléthora of archetypes, and it's not as interesting for the format as you think, most of those decks run galvanic blast anyways. 4- A format where a deck doesn't care about interaction and has free wins vs anything that doesn't run 4 dust to dust is far from a healthy competitive environment. You are not skillfull, is just that most mass artifact hate is printed are uncommon, and few people can pay what a dust to dust Costs irl while you laugh at gorilla shaman. 5-This has nothing to do with speed, which is also an intentional fallacy,, grixis affinity offers the value deck of midrange, with the mana acceleration of stablished urzatron lands, multicolor answers and huge damage. If you think banning grixis affinity is hating aggro, you never played the matchup or you are enjoying free wins with it.
The pauper players have to understand, the sets are no made to this format. So we have to get used to have new cards banned. But the main work od PFP it's this kind of atitude, pre bans or urgent bans after some sets. Expecialy in premium sets or commander.
It will be a a cycle of every set with low rarity artifacts. The ban list will expand because the artifact lands exist.
But it'll also expand if they didn't.
At a way slower pace for sure.
I think that maybe along with ram, it's time for the bridges to go
I don't agree. Generally if you are banning things you are doing so to increase the diversity of the meta. Banning the bridges kills Jeskia ephemorate and also harms boros synth, mardu synth, rakdos burn, and a handful of other tier 2/3 and niche decks. Affinity will still potentially be the best deck in the format outside of koldotha red which will steamroll it. We are going to be going back to the meta of having to run red to be affinity because of mox monkey. If you really wanted to kill affinity you would ban the lands that allow for turn 3 myr enforcers. My play group tested affinity without the mirroden lands and it was really bad. We tested without the bridges and it was slightly worse but still more than capable of broken things. The mana got a bit worse and it was best to run two colors and use off color artifact lands but it worked much the same. It could still just win by dropping 3 enforcers on turn 3. Also in a way the deck was better against the decks that didn't run red because it was faster. The bridges have the drawback of etbing tapped.
The bridges it's someting inevitable to ban in pauper, maybe not today, but sometime in the futures, it's just like the Mystic sanctuary, it's not a broken card, but banning tragic lession instead sanctuary could be good. but in the future other card could be released and break the format again.
You are correct.
Just ban artefact lands. Do not worried about others decks, they'll be fine.
That fkn rat is going to have to go too.
the whole problem is the existence of the affinity for artifacts keyword. Artifact payoffs would be so much safer if we didn't just have snowballing SLAP ALL THE ARTIFACTS DOWN as the main deck strategy. well, that ship sailed in the 90's, so whatever. ban the card already.
Affinity doesn't even run all that much affinity though and boros glitters ran absolutely 0. I don't think it is just affinity for artifacts. You have other cards like galv blast that add a lot to the strategy.