Simple question: yea or nay on banning Black Box?

Stupid Combo #1: Ridicuhuge ATK and burn with X-Force
Stupid Combo #2: Infinite life gain with Runaways
Stupid Combo #3: Infinite attacks with Bosom Buddies

And these will not be the last ones.

This card has almost no application in a standard deck... its ONLY purpose is to enable stupid combos. I move that it be banned.

And let's ban 3-drop Blink while we're at it! Any takers? ;)

well i think the idea was to combine it with TO virus, so that you could get back that which you had discarded.... so hence a combo...... yeah.....

Right, the combos all revolve around the combination of Black Box and T-O virus... but while T-O has applications in a non-stupid deck, Black Box's only application is enabling dumb infinite combos, so it seems like a pretty painless ban for me.

Yeah, I've gone on records; Black Box is too much of a combo enabler, and needs to leave the game. It has legit uses, but it's never used for those :).

Blink / Beak / Mariko etc. the verdict is still out, and I don't know without major tournaments whether we'll ever be able to see how "busted" shift is. From initial playtesting its unbeatable (a much, much better press with a burn engine), but time may yield more answers. (And for the record, nobody has bothered playing an infi combo deck online; since people would not stand for it... but lacking the answers to it means that it would certainly lose to those). As it stands, the deck is technically doing what it is supposed to do, unlike Black Box, so the question is "Is the deck too overwhelming to deal with, or is it just a top tier competitive deck like the Quicksilver decks"? Until it has a fair shake, that one can be left alone.

Even Black Box I'd say let the verdict be out, but when something generates this many consistant infi combos THAT quickly, it really does need to leave so it doesn't cause any more trouble. As it stands I have to try to get Caliban into every deck so I can cut off the combo before the turn 4 "drop dead" point.

Only application is a bit excessive. It is insurance against decks like Runaways and Secret Society decks that mill you out, and card draw means it can also find it's way into a deck like Insanity that needs all the random draw effects it can find (and in the case of a normal deck it can easily be a "water" card, where it replaces itself). In sealed, for example, it's more likely to get down to no cards in deck.

It may be the card that needs to be dealt with to eliminate the problem, but it does have applications outside of broken combos.

I posted about this on the Runaways thread so I'll just copy and paste for all of you here:

Now for some extra stuff.

In all honesty I think that Techno-Organic Virus is much more problematic than Black Box. When you look at all 3 decks Black Box would not do as much without the inclusion of the Virus. Virus only purpose is to enable combos not Black Box as spud suggested. There are other uses for Black Box. Just to mention a few it takes care of:

Messiah Complex
Jamie Madrox -Jamie Prime
Secret Society as a whole
Underworld to a high degree
Carrying the Torch
Asgard
and so forth.

It can also help avoid getting decked by The Runaways, or getting key PT back if Starjammers discarded them from your hand.

Is Black Box a great card? Hell yeah. But I'm not really sure Black Box is the problem.

Runaways deck could live without Techno (it draws 2 cards at no cost, so is great, but the engine could live only slightly less efficiently without it). The other decks (that get to draw 4) would probably die off (or at least lose lots of power), but that's not the issue.

The big issue is: once your deck is out of cards, however you went around it, an infi combo is setup. There will always be ways found to deplete your library at a fast pace.

If Black Box said "target opponent shuffles", I'd say "sure, it stops lots of annoying graveyard effects". If it says "play only if you have 20 or more cards left in your library", great! But it doesn't; and it will continue to be used as the "unfair" engine.

I'm all for people playing the Cable Techno-low-character "fair" decks (Tommy's Rapid Strike deck); those are fine; very powerful, but certainly beatable. The combo decks are literally a bit (True/False for the non-geeks out there). Either you have the answer (Caliban / Radioactive Man) active and ready turn 4, or you lose the game. Simple as that.

No matter what you pull now, Black Box will be a problem. For that reason, it simply has to go.

But what about all the characters or effects turn 4 or sooner that can stop these card drawing engines to go off? Have none of you played against Mesmero or had a turn 3 X-Gene Decoded played on you while playing these decks? I know I have and they have crippled my deck in such a way that it is impossible for me to win.

Are we paying to much attention to the combos and not to the solutions?

I would errata for the sake of draft. It can be as broken in draft and set up infinite loops (especially in a 30 card deck with three or more potentially).

It needs to remove itself from the game.

Runaways can't be stopped by Mesmero (goes off during Build Phase). Cable only loses if you have a Satellite (and even then, should run Pathetic Attempts to stop that nonsense), as it will Bodyslide the hunted character. X-Gene can stop the engine if it gets lucky. Caliban is the best answer, Radioactive man probably second (if you have ways of getting 1 extra counter on him). Lex stops cable, but only delays Runaways for 1 turn (they can go off in response).

The issue is: do you really want to have to play answers here? Do you want to strap 4 Calibans into every deck just to stand a chance against combo? There were answers to Light Show too; but you had to play them, and get them into hand fast enough to stop the combo. This sort of "forced metagaming" is VERY unhealthy for a game. And again, this card did exist in Magic too, and had the same issues. One really has to ask what they were thinking.

Ban Black Box, and I think this would step up to the plate:

4 Moonstar
4 Aurora
3 Viper, Lady of HYDRA
1 Cable, Soldier X
4 Vision
4 Cable, Dayspring

4 Call in a Favor
4 Techno-Organic Virus
4 We Can Rebuild Him
4 Trouble with Dinosaurs
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Blinding Rage
1 Only Human
2 Mobilize
1 Blind Sided
4 Losing the Argument
4 Alpha Flight: Reborn
4 Heroes of Two Worlds

You have 10 resource points by turn 4, spend 2 of them doing Vision/Moonstar things, and play 4-drop Cable, Aurora and Viper. Then, outside of combat, thin your deck with Heroes and Call in a Favors and play Techno-Organic Virus and Alpha-Flight Reborn (supplemented by We Can Rebuild Him) to draw your entire deck. Only Human is there to turn off Mesmero, Cyclops or whatever else might be bothering you. From there, attack with Viper and play 4 Beatdown + 4 Blinding Rage + 4 Trouble With Dinosaurs (re-using one of them off Aurora). This works on or off initiative (thanks to Viper) and gets around Beak Saves the Day (also thanks to Viper). It even gets around The Elektra Situation. And it's very consistent.

Both Black Box and Techno-Organic Virus are huge problems, but for different reasons. Both are potentially bannable, though I think Black Box deviates from its intended function more. The worst part of having these decks exist is that the cards that beat them beat them utterly; yeah, you can play Caliban, but that means the game is still being decided in a non-interactive fashion on turn 4 (or earlier; if you draw Caliban in your opener against a Techno combo deck, it was then the game ended).

If there was still a Pro Circuit, I think both of them would be banned.

Ban infinite loops!

I remember when DavidG showed me the Justice league of Arkam deck and remember thinking WTF! Who wants to play against decks like this, who wants to play decks like this?

It's bad for the game, Ban it!

Could you do it without Techno but with Black Box?

If you can't do it without the T-OV then we would know for sure that Black Box isn't the problem. If you can then we definitely need to ban both of them. As is I still think that T-OV is much more problematic.

you guys do realize that there is a way to win prior to your opponent even setting his 4th resource if you have even int. Just using the Maurders Team-Up. Its just stupid easy to do and you easily burn them for all of their endurance. It makes me sad that Black Box is just this dumb.

:cool:

Why was Frankie Banned?

Why was Valeria Banned?

Why was Dr. Light Banned?

Consistent, competetive infi loops have been banned in the past, and should be banned.

That said, would they even bother anymore? There isn't any OP for it to dominate.

If they annouce any more tournements, they will ban it.