#gitaxian probe

1. Banned & Restricted Update Discussion

Original image posted by @sarkhan-volkswagen

Wizards of the Coast announced bannings this past week, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Emrakul, the Promised End, Smuggler’s Copter, and Reflector Mage were banned in Standard, while Modern bans were simply Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll. There have been mixed feelings about these bans: many people were annoyed and upset that their favourite cards were banned, while others were quite relieved.

Emrakul, the Promised End, the final titan to be released, and the first to be banned. According to WotC, Emrakul was “created to be scarily powerful,” and “delivered on that promise too well.” @ugin guessed that “if an Emrakul hit the field, I would guess that approximately 90% of the time that person would win.” Scarily powerful indeed, and this was made even more scary with cards like Aetherworks Marvel. As a counterpoint, @life-is-short-for-us said that it isn’t unbeatable, but didn’t suggest how to actually beat it. Instead, he simply said that for Standard, it isn’t about “banning cards that are too good, but banning cards that are so good they are damn near impossible to beat and your only hope is playing the mirror match and they are like 70% of the field.”

This brings us to our second card banned, Smuggler’s Copter. While I don’t play much Standard, this one annoyed the hell out of me, and now that it’s banned, I’m kinda relieved. For this one, Wizards says that it was in too many of the top decks and was restricting creativity. I agree, as does @queen-marchesa: “The one that is least surprising is the Copter. It really was too omnipresent in Standard to allow for exploration or creativity.” I have always thought that the Looter Scooter was too powerful for a turn-two artifact, which helped turn the format stale.

Our final Standard banning was Reflector Mage. There’s not much to say about this one, really, and I think it was one of the odder bannings. Wizards says that, “Our data showed the White-Blue Flash deck was too powerful against the field,and Reflector Mage has been on players' lists of most-disliked cards, since the days of Collected Company.” I suppose when you take down decks with Emrakul and Copter, W/U Flash would be the one to dominate. Tumblr users agreed, with one stating, “The card ended up being very effective in this format.” Others thought it was a surprising ban, but seeing that it’s stuck around for so long, “makes sense.”

As for the Modern bans, let’s start with Gitaxian Probe. This one is one of the least surprising to me, as it takes some skill out of the game. According to @jurou-tenshi, “Git probe has had it coming for a long time. It enabled too many degenerate strategies.” @avatar-of-woah states, “Probe’s actually a real issue in infect because it takes play skill out of the equation. Instead of trying to read your opponent and what they could have that would beat you, you just pay two life,” and proceed from there. According to @urzas-raven-armour, “With the probe ban, storm is even less playable now.” I would assume that this ban also hits Delver decks, but I don’t know enough about them.

The final ban released this week was Golgari Grave-Troll, and from what I have found, people are glad to see it go. One user said that “Dredge is a silly silly deck that has proven to be too powerful for Modern,” and with the Delve mechanic brought back in Khans of Tarkir, I agree. Golgari Grave-Troll is a creature with Dredge 6, and it enters the battlefield with counters equal to the number of creatures in the graveyard. You can also pay one generic mana and remove a counter to regenerate it. Now, that seems extremely powerful to me, especially in the late game, where you’ll most likely have a lot of creatures in your graveyard, but it is definitely the Dredge 6 that puts it over the top, enabling way too many graveyard shenanigans.

--- Connor S, @solemnly-mystifying

2. This Past Week’s Magic Story Review

Kari Zev - playing around with a doodle. | Original art by @sketchydoodles​

In this past week’s new Kaladesh Story “The Skies Over Ghirapur,” by Ari Levitch, we were introduced to the feisty teenage pirate captain, Kari Zev. In this story Kari Zev and Jace Beleren team up to assist the renegades, first by going on a heist to obtain aether, then to help the renegades take on the Skysovereign after they lost control of the Aether Hub in the story “Burn.”

The Tumblr community met this story with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The community adored the tenacity of Kari Zev and her sidekick, the monkey Ragavan. Tumblr user @zomburai claimed that the story was a delight. Others, like @abzanascendancy, were most excited about sky pirates. They also applauded Kari Zev for being 15, yet also being able to “pilot, command and crew her own ship.” Community members were even more excited about pirates then they were already, and some probably hope that a pirate-themed block will come along in the not-too-distant future.

With only three stories left in the Aether Revolt storyline, the MTGcommunity is anxiously waiting to see what happens next, with the Gatewatch’s final confrontation with Tezzeret and the Consulate, and what else that is in store for the plane of Kaladesh.

--- Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

3. General Magic Story Discussion and Speculation

Deploy the Gatewatch | Original art by Wesley Burt

This week has been rife with Magic Story metadiscourse, from speculation for the future, to reflection on the past. Fans discussed Nissa’s shift toward tolerance in Magic Origins, and whether or not this made her a “Mary Sue”, prompting @commandtower-solring-go’s analysis of the term and its relationship to Magic [x]. On the other side, @chelsea-beleren-vess compiled potential points of civil war foreshadowing [x]

Prior to her Origins revision, Nissa, like most elves, believed that elves reigned superior over other races, and moreover her band of elves above even other elves. When her backstory was updated, these biases were no longer present. Lots of fans were upset by this. They missed their little racist, which is a little distressing, honestly. It’s important we ask ourselves why it’s so important for her to be hateful. This led one user to ask @markrosewater why the Gatewatch was composed of “Mary Sues.” By and large, “Mary Sue” is a term used to degrade a character for being all-powerful or infallible. This term really doesn’t describe the Gatewatch. Take Gideon, who was too proud and got his Irregulars killed, then repeated the mistake on Zendikar. Look at Jace --- neglectful of his duty as the Guildpact, and by even his own admission, annoying and pretentious as all hell. Liliana is, well, Liliana. Chandra has consistently been short-sighted and rash; she has consistently endangered the lives of the people she cares about, including the Gatewatch (see “In This Very Arena” and “Burn”). Nissa has been altoether aloof and unable to relate to her teammates, and was made to suffer immensely over the course of the Battle for Zendikar storyline.

Wizards could be setting the stage for a civil war within the Gatewatch, ala Marvel. In this hypothetical confrontation, Gideon leads one side, while Jace rallies his allies. Who will side with whom is anyone’s guess, but I’m personally partial to Chandra, Nissa, Gideon, and Ajani squaring off against Jace and Lili, but this is clouded by my distaste for Lili and her relationship with Jace, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

--- Nick D, @nick-dowdle-jeskai-judicator​

4. Incoming WoTC President Chris Cocks’ Digital Tease

Glimpse the Future | Original art by Andrew Robinson

Last Thursday, the President of Wizards of the Coast, Chris Cocks, released a public statement regarding the future of WotC’s IP, concentrating on the following points:

Reimagining digital versions of Magic and other Wizards games.

Bringing their characters and worlds to other games and experiences.

Making people’s Wizards experiences more efficient, connected, and convenient.

What most Tumblrs seemed to latch onto was the idea of Magic: the Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons branded video games, and many people wanted to share their thoughts on the matter.

@simic-initiate said, “I’ve no doubt irritated many friends by consistently insisting that Magic has a criminally underused mythos and cast of characters. Wizards does SO much world building each plane that just, hardly gets used again if ever.” [x]

@planeswalkerwithtardis suggests, “Persona JRPG with MtG characters as the personas, color combinations replace arcana. It would also hedge Wizard’s bets by crossing their customer base for that product with the ever hungry Persona fan base.” [x]

@youknowwhatscrewyou went a different direction: “I would love an mtg fighting game, similar to smash bros or something, so that is not too competitive and allows for some fun, crazy stuff.” [x]

@mixingmetaphorsoup also thinks MMOs are a hiding to nothing: “What? Throwing spells at a Planeswalker in an MMO? Surely you mean MOBA. As I’ve said before, Magic fits perfectly into a MOBA shell.” [x]

What video game genre do you think would make a good Magic game?

--- Liam W, @coincidencetheories

BONUS! “LILIANA VESS - MAGIC THE GATHERING.” Original art by @lunardays22

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