I really don't understand the point of getting rid of certain generic search cards while not getting rid of other team-stamped ones. All that would happen is that certain deck archetypes would become significantly more powerful than others, simply because they had the best team-stamped search cards. You would see tons of Inhumans+Xyz decks, for example, because of Lockjaw, San, Great Refuge, and Attilan.

Meanwhile, other deck archetypes that are currently competitive would become unusable, solely because they lack the necessary team-stamped search cards. There would not be a fundamental change in the way that we would build decks. (Admittedly we would stop building decks with 1-of toolbox characters, but we would continue to build our decks around our search cards, to maximize consistency.) Instead, there would be a sharp drop in the number of deck archetypes that were consistent enough to be competitive. Instead of seeing Golden Age PC's in which there are 38 different categories in the metagame breakdown, you would get ones with 20. Well, unless UDE responded to The Great Generic Search Card Ban by including 2-4 great search cards for every single team, in which case, what was the point of getting rid of the generic search cards (which you can purchase once and reuse in innumerable decks)?

Now, let's suppose you take the extreme approach and say, "Fine, we'll just ban all search cards then." Great Refuge, gone. Fatal Five Hundred, gone. Boliver Trask, Secret Files, Stargate, Creation of a Herald, Ted Kord, San, anything that searches for anything, gone. Would that change the way we build decks? You bet! Then our focus would shift from cards that let us search to cards that let us draw--cards like Sage, Tessa and Dr. Minerva and Worthington Industries and Helm of Nabu. We would find ourselves splashing in cards that don't really belong in our decks, just because they give us the all important draw power.

So what would this new and "improved" game be like? I guess it would be a lot like Yugioh, where very few deck archetypes are actually playable, where synergy in deck design is virtually non-existent, and where (almost) anyone can beat (almost) anyone, because no one's deck is consistent enough to avoid getting lucksacked in a tournament by the little kid with the god draws. Wouldn't that be great?

Be very careful what you wish for.

I'm not for the banning of either, but that was incredibly short sighted, if not a completely false assumption.

I think the world is ending, because I sort of have to agree with BackAgain.

Then again, every few days something makes that list of things he has heard.

I do agree with what was said about cards being banned, and not played anymore. The same deck of cards I use at Hobby League, I use with my friends. I'm not allowed to use banned cards with either, nor would I. If a card is banned, then there was a reason (even if I do not agree with it) newer cards will be made that do not keep the banned card in mind, and next you know, you have something really broken in play.

When you start playing with banned cards, you have to start asking people if that is alright with them, you have to rebuild your deck between games, tournies, and Nobby League, and it becomes such a pain that following the list all the time becomes the norm.

Since my days of Magic, and well into Vs with handfuls of CCGs between, I have yet to play or hang out with anyone that does not use the banned list all the time. Other than a card Shop in Sourthern Kentucky where no one bothers to look the list up for most games (most do not even know about)

My five cards for the banhammer and five cards I think people should give a chance.

Dr Minerva, a 2 drop with above average stats who is usually cost 1 and gives card advantage while doing so.

Frankie Raye (1) Total card advantage while not being teamstamped or restricted at all.

And

Poison Ivy (2) I love Arkham but the fact of the matter is shes a better Ahmed Samsara without the "you lose the game" stigma attached to him. Shes too good. even if you lost all free characters she works way too well with Ape X and Blue beetle and other useless characters after turn 1. Arkham isn't even a location heavy team. Checkmate, Heralds, League of Assassins and Hellfire Club all need their locations to go off and have extremely teamstamped ways to get them(cept ahmed but he has the lose the game downside)

Quicksilver (2) Like Ivy is completly against both teams he is on. On the inhumans side hes usually ditched for a hidden 2 drop.As a Avenger he conflicts with their 3 and hes a blank card for them too. All he does is a completly decimating attack and he even adds breakthrough for that second attack. He ends games because your opponent has missed a drop and that in itself is uncool. Not to mention the inhumans themselves have 8 ways to ensure he is out on turn 2 alone and it racks up to insane amounts of damage for little to no amount of effort.

Mr Mxyptylk (1) Sinister Serpent was a problem card in Yu Gi Oh and eventually became banned because it fueled too many negative startegies. It ensured card advantage for discard thingies.
Mxy does this just as well and better because he can be put into your fko pile turn 2 with a straight to the grave. Hes completly non teamstamped , makes Swamp unfair and even helps with things that SHOULD cost you like frankie raye nenora and of course the biggest problem of them all. He completly negates the cost of enemy of my enemy since hes in 90% of the cases a different team than what you are.


Five cards that should be left alone( for now anyway)

Enemy Of My Enemy and Mobilize
You ban these people will be pissed. Theres a small contingent of people starting to loathe these cards however they are money they are the only real money remaining in the game that isn't extended art.If it wasn't for the fact that Mxy negates the cost for both they would both be costly atleast to a point.

Captain Marvel- If someone makes it to turn 8 with 25 life they should be able to win the game.

Ahmed Samsarra- He has the text YOU LOSE THE GAME on it. Hes unfair but really only for his own team. He is mostly used to get teamups for his team and tutors for his team. Hes hidden most of the time and means you're usually taking damage if you want to keep him safe.

Haywire- Hes a blank card that works well with secret sanctuary. he needs a 2 card combo with a useless card to recur he has 0 attack and hes only heavily abused because of devils due/ poison ivy.

The cards that enable brokenness and should likely be looked at but won't be banned for soem reason.
Devils Due
Hard Sound Construct
Rigged Elections
Cosmic Radiation
Attend Or Die
Child Named Valeria

Lastly there are cards that will eventually become problems but arent right now.
Kooey Kooey Kooey
Nenora
Straight To The Grave
Fate Stuff

It's really not costly. At all. That's why Enemy is in every deck.

While we are at it, lets ban every single search card ever printed. shuffling decks takes too long. Not losing games to missing drops is overrated.

In all seriousness though, mobilize should not be included on the ban enemy list. It's much more vulnerable, highly disruptable, and doesn't get you a team you don't already have. It's main purpose is as an on-team tutor and it works well in that role.

Banning Minerva is a joke. Yes Press is quite abusable but minerva isn't the main problem, its the mechanic itself. Also KreeVU is quite beatable if you actually try to do so, especially since aggro doesn't lose to Dr. Light + Deadshot anymore. If you're going to do anything about Kree what should be done is the following chance to the mechanic itself:

"Whenever you recruit a character with press your next press character this turn is reduced in cost by 1 resource point (to a minimum of 1) for every press character you have recruited so far this turn."

Kooey on a watch list is a joke. If you want Kooey on a watch list you'd have to put Creation of a Herald right there with it. One of those 2 cards costs you a resource.. the other merely requires you to pitch a galactus for the same effect. It should be quite clear which is better.

Quicksilver 2 should not be on any banned list at this point. Yes its a fast kill deck, but its disruptable in a plethora of ways including resource disruption before the attack is legal, meltdown, stunback tricks (nasty suprise, defend yourself, etc..), Stunning quicksilver before he gets his cloak. It's also a deck that has a fair amount of consistency issues. These choices should be available for players in the meta, there is nothing fundamentally wrong about these decks, they kill quickly, but they do it through combat which is what this game is supposed to be based around.

Ban hammers should not be thrown around liberally otherwise every team will have the exact same characters with different names when all is said and done.

I'd rather like to suggest the following to R&D:

Stop printing cards that have no purpose outside of degenerate combos. I.E.

- Attend or Die (the recruit from KO pile excuse seems weak given the quality of Slaughter Swamp and other such cards).

- Nega-Bomb (seriously, wtf did anyone expect this card to do if not be part of a degenerate combo engine or be a worthless piece of cardboard in the rare slot. neither of these seems a reason to print the card).

Make a serious effort to print cards that have uses outside of combo decks. If an effect seems really good team-stamp it to a reasonable degree.

Consider printing locations or plot twists that count as a team affiliation for the purpose of loyalty reveal if it becomes hard to slap the keywords on certain low drops for a team.

Yes that is the essence of it (although I am not gonna repost all that I said about the card). The whole cost and effect are way out of balance when compared to other tutors, even the team stamped ones.

It is a generic tutor that is better than every other tutor in the game especially the team-stamped ones. It's only drawback in deck construction is that you either cherry-pick some characters and/or play silver bullets (and if you play 2 or more teams you are ready to go anyway). And to be honest that is not much a drawback unless you are mono-team and you can not afford an off team splash for whatever reason (like Titans).

There has been a general trend of better and better team-stamped tutors culminating in recent sets with Great Refuge, Kindred Spirits, Creation of a Herald and New Recruits. Of these one of them has the potential to be an outright search rather than just characters, and the other three have very low thresholds. It has gotten to the point where certain builds decide not to run enemy or not run 4 enemies because running enemy requires extra 2-drops.

Mobilize is a push towards mono and dual team decks again. And its needed.


In Conclusion,

Print Wrath of God at threshold 5.
P.S. Ban Bamf

This I completely agree with you about.

I am more than willing to sacrifice Frankie (1-MHG) for the betterment of the game - (a card I do use in a deck). The pain to reward issue really says ban her with very little question.

It's some of the more integral cards, namely EomE and Mobilize(!), that I think would do a great deal of damage to the casual scene if just outright banned, that rather than moving for their banning, I believe, we should instead be looking for a way to "format" these very, very popular cards out of the vast majority of competitive play (should something need to be done about them - which is something you have asserted. Again, I'm not for it - I am simply attempting to move what I believe is an extreme arguement to a more acceptable middle-ground, in case it should prove successful).

Alot of people have brought up that Golden Age can't be "pro-viable" forever, and Golden Age is already (pretty much) the de-facto casual format, so why not take now as an opportunity to shift competitive VS farther away from Golden Age and move these incredibly popular, but arguably troublesome at a pro-level, cards into Golden Age, to prevent (among other things) a billion casual pet-decks to scream out in terror and then be silenced - something that may very well have large, negative repercussions.
(That was a run-on sentence, and I apologize. Again, I am sick today)

"Personally" personally, I'd rather have them both remain as they are - however, reasonably, I see that may not be the best thing for the community as a whole.

This compromise, however, I believe IS.



Unless someone has a better idea?

Actually I felt the same until I realized the only people that bought a playset of EomE were the same ones who didn't buy new clothes, sneakers, boots, etc., so I just laughed it off all the way to the GAP.

Seriously, even from a casual point of view, I don't understand how Enemy can promote a fun environment. It's a crutch that can easily be replaced with Mobilize, team-ups (gasp!), and deck tuning in the case of two team decks (which seems to be the argument from casual players for keeping it). Otherwise, it's enabling the busted decks that aren't fun to play with or against.

Honestly, the only deck I can think of that I enjoyed playing in awhile was Moloids, which could replace its Enemies with Mobilize, because it actually teams up. It would have to be built to accomodate Mobilize, and be less powerful, but so would a lot of the field.

Hell, I propose banning Enemy just because I think Mobilize has much better art. Teamwork is a lot more fun to look at than a couple of old men, too.

Mobilize being banned? Give me a break. Teams that didn't stand a chance because the didn't have a viable search or any search now can see the light of play because of it. Enemy? Understandable because it's so goddamn annoying. Frankie; pain in the ###. Then again, so is Time Theif. Point is, Roy Harper is annoying; he's not banned. Terra; annoying, not banned. Garth; annoying, not banned and we all dealt with them since Origins. I'm more for reacting this time instead of being proactive. Oh, and by the way, Roy's been shooting fields to the point where, two years later, Titans are STILL A VIABLE OPTION two years later. My suggestion: if we start banning those cards, we might as well ban the Origins stuff too.

Light needed to be banned simply because Poison Ivy was the last straw. Her effect is supposed to be a sacrifice for resource management but in the end, the good Dr. made everything free. The only ban that irks me had to be Overload.

I agree with your other point that mobilize should stay, but I disagree with your first paragraph. The early sets presented several teams with solid search, and these teams tended to dominate as a result. (although admittedly there were other reasons aswell)

Arguably the best stamped search to date came long before TGR, KS, and CoaH (the card in question is wild ride), thus I don't think that there's a "trend toward" better stamped searches per se, but rather a realization that stamped searches weigh heavily in making teams playable, and as a result there has been a greater focus placed on printing viable versions of them.

To be honest, I want to see Enemy of my Enemy take a dirt nap more than any other card in Vs right now. Probably more than Frankie Raye, simply because it is the greatest combo enabler at all: it takes synergies between characters of completely different team affiliations and brings together degenerate combos together far too easily.

Can anyone actually show me how degenerate the Talia + Armory combo is when you can't use EOME to set up the pieces, and instead are forced to rely on only Straight to the Grave and Beetle to find the key parts of the deck? What about the Attend or Die deck that was posted earlier this week? Would it be nearly as good if you didn't have Enemy of my Enemy to set up the key cards for your deck? It's not like you couldn't play these combos, but they'd be a bit slower when 4 fewer cards in your deck are dedicated to finding literally any missing character you need out of your deck.

Earlier today I was thinking Frankie Raye and Attend or Die would be the two cards that need to go to keep the game healthy. Now I'm thinking EOME is probably the biggest issue right now, with Frankie Raye right behind it.

I'd actually me more inclined to see a ban list for each specific format, as that seperates the formats and recognizes that each one leads to a very different style of gameplay. Silver Age was designed to be the fair format, the "extended" of Vs System. It incorporates a wide range of cards from the latest 8 sets in order to create a fair and balanced environment. Same for modern age, which was designed to be a showcase of the most recent sets.

Let Golden Age have its broken decks. That's what makes the format fun: while silver age and modern age are more linear formats to understand, golden age is unique in that it's the ultimate puzzle: which deck works best as the right deck to play? Will Doom be the right call in order to minimize threats via Cosmic combo decks? If this is the case then should I be playing a faster reckless combo or aggro deck like Fatesilver, or Voltage? What about the generic "tap everything down" X-stall control? That may be fair. Perhaps Titans shenanigans will be a great all-around deck with its NTZs and Harper tricks, but it may not be the safest call if I'm not sure what to expect. There is a lot one player has to ask themself when building for golden age.

That's what makes the format special. Let it have its stupid combos and cards, but clean up silver age so that we can all stop playing with the same deck skeletons. I'm quite tired of starting all of my deck-lists with 4 EOME and 4 Frankie, thanks.