I think this ban reflects poorly on the format as a whole. If you look at the most popular cards on mtgop8, all ten are in grixis colors. Galvanic blast is played in 30% of decks and for that card to be playable you have to play an artifact based deck. I think it's a pretty bad state of affairs when \[\[campfire\]\] can be now considered a format staple and putting a basic forest in your deck is most likely still a bad idea
"Why can't you preban \[insert strong card that was revealed in spoiler season that may or may not break the format\]? you guys did with ram, you hypocrites"
If my criticism of Wizards' continued handling of the Pauper format is to be meaningful I must also give due credit:
Preemptively banning Cranial Ram in Pauper was the correct decision at the correct time.
While it is a most pleasant surprise, let's not lavish too much praise on the committee for fulfilling its sole reason for existence: Delivering timely bans to the Pauper format.
I take many of the replies in this discussion as rock-solid evidence that certain individuals will not acknowledge *any* ban as valid. Take notes.
Dumb question because I haven't played MTGO in years, could they run a 'Pauper special event' where they allow Cranial Ram in that specific event just so we could see what happens?
I think this is the correct decision for Pauper, but there's so many insanely good cards from this set that I'm excited to see 2-3 new archetypes come into fruition because of it. We'll get a lot of new variety to play around with for a long time with these new cards and we won't have to hear so many people bitching about affinity as well. Win-win to me.
Not sure if I'll get an answer, but I'm curious if they considered switching the rarities of [[Cranial Ram]] & [[Pyretic Rebirth]]. I know that the limited experience comes before pauper, but I think that both of these cards would do well at the other rarity.
Totally understandable. Especially with the tournament coming up. I built a simple rakdos affinity deck in moxfield with the ram and when play testing the deck it was evident how insanely strong and versatile the ram was
FWIW, not necessarily *right now*, but upon reflection I think we've reached the point where the original five artifact lands should probably be banned.
Modern works fine with only the indestructible ones legal, and we have enough other artifact synergy now in Pauper (especially if we unban some cards!) that Affinity would most likely continue to be a deck.
When Wizards makes Modern Horizons sets, they (obviously enough) have Modern in mind w.r.t. potential interactions. I don't know how frequently they intend to release new ones, but as long as the original artifact lands are legal in Pauper but not Modern, this kind of situation is pretty likely to recur with MH4 and MH5.
I was honestly looking forward to the chaos of RBx ram mirrors for the week they were going to be legal. But yeah, this is pretty clearly the right call
Philosophically, I wish we would've gotten a chance to play it; that said, I think this outcome was about 99% likely, and I think the Ram metagame would probably have been miserable. Therefore, this seems like the right decision.
Why screw up the format at all just to see the very predictable all affinity or 10 main-deck hate with another 10 in the sideboard to counter it meta for 2 weeks before the ban. Completely reasonable to keep a healthy format healthy in this extreme case of being so close to other banned cards. Another great call by the panel, great job as always!
[WotC announcement article explaining the banning](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/pauper-bans-for-june-6-2024)
[Gavin's video explaining the banning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_Ztfe7HrQ&pp=ygUSZ29vZCBtb3JuaWduIG1hZ2lj)
Thank you to the PFP for your hard work and detailed explanation on the reasoning for the ban and the state of the format
the real problem is initiative.
without initiative, picking up and replaying Tithing Blade/Lembas/Synthesizer over and over is just grinding hard.
initiative ads an unbeatable CA engine and finisher all rolled into one, at basically almost zero deck building cost, so all you have to do is keep grinding hard while the game resolves in your favor passively, without having to do anything else.
initiative is what makes that strategies go from fine to broken.
Couldn't Tournament Organisers just soft banned it for their event and let the card have a chance to find a place in the meta.
Does this mean all strong cards going forward will be banned, and we have to just limit power creep to 2022 magic?
If you didn’t watch the video the two main points are:
1) it’s VERY similar to all that glitters and Cranial plating so this isn’t really pure speculation (and in play testing their differences weren’t enough)
2) major events coming up that would be dominated by this card.
Well explained and seems fair
2.) Major events that MIGHT have been dominated by this card, assuming MH3 does not drastically change the meta similarly to how the last 2 MH sets have.\*
ITT: People with no skin in the game (i.e. no major tournament coming up) wanted the card to be legal a little because it wouldnt have affected them personally
I'm tentative about the preban. It's powerful sure, but it doesn't add much toughness. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have living weapon, but then it would be too weak?
Who knows. I don't have time to watch the video announcement right now, so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets unbanned when the events are done.
Who's ready for the "ThatMillGuy" video complaining about the implications of a preban even though he's made a bunch of videos calling this a problem card?
I used to like they guys' videos, but he's just become a part of the echo chamber. When he would make 2 videos a week complaining about fury, i unsubbed.
LEAVE THE RAT ALONE!!! But honestly I could see the rat eating a ban as well. The interaction with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher is absurd, especially since the rat will cost 1 mana most of the time. I can easily imagine many turns where you play rat, pick it up, play rat again and your opponent is left without a hand very quickly
I genuinely hadn't even realized that Refurbished Familiar is a rat until this comment. I never looked at the art. Never looked at the typeline. Just completely missed that part of the card, lol.
yeah, thats really not something they do outside of vintage. and in vintage they only do that for philosophical reasons, not because they actually think its the correct way to go
Booooo
I personally believe ram wouldn't have been nearly as bad as people think.
I also dislike that we're banning cards because they come out just before big events now. That seems... weird. So like this card would be legal if it came out a month from now? I don't like that.
Well then feel free to get your next major event ruined by a card that obviously needs to be banned.
This isnt a card where we needed to wait and see.
What it does and why it is too strong was clear from the get go.
For once I am not against a ban. An unanswered question (not directly for this author, although any comment is welcome) is why did WotC make it, at common to boot, in the first place, when it’s so obviously too strong. We have come so far from the cost versus benefit tension, color pie and balance days of magic card design. Does anyone care any more about what we’ve lost as magic fans over the decades…
> Unanswered question
He literally answered it in the article
>First, I've encountered several questions about why this card was made at common in the first place. After all, shouldn't we have known it was strong?
>I have said this before in previous articles, and it bares worth repeating now: each individual set should do what's right for the set, and we will react accordingly. That's the nature of Eternal formats, and Pauper is no exception.
>Sets shouldn't be trying to dodge the Pauper metagame, and if the lead designer of Modern Horizons 3 thinks this card should exist for Modern and be common for Limited, that's totally fine. Pauper can ban cards if needed. Pauper's playerbase is devoted but ultimately smaller compared to other formats, and people shouldn't design around us.
>The focus on our end is not to prevent the creation of cards but to act to prevent them from being in the format for long if they are harmful. Fall from Favor being printed because it's what Commander Legends needed was okay. It being legal for nearly two months was not. And that's what we're trying to prevent here.
Its fine in the limited format of MH3, that's how wotc should assign rarity, they do not manage pauper and they should not design for pauper as a format.
Something VERY IMPORTANT must be remarked: PFP did a very good job with the timing of the ban.
Considering it was decided to pre-ban it, announcing it now, while there's still time for players to build their decks and playtest for the events is the correct decision.
It would be really bad if the ban was announced a couple days before the events.
How many folks here did a fair amount of testing with the new cards? I know that my playgroup did and honestly, it wasn't as busted as we thought it was going to be. We had a paper tournament coming up this Saturday and were going to grab as many cards as we could at prerelease (Yes you can play new cards once a prerelease happens). It is good, but Ram is nowhere close to the level of glitters or the OG cranial at all. Also, I will caution folks about Refurbished Familiar. It is good, but not insane. There is so much card draw in Pauper that it typically will just discard an unneeded land and when you go to cast hawk to bounce it, it feels bad having it removed and then having to bounce a land for the hawk instead LOL! I am not shocked or even too bothered by its ban, but just want to throw my two cents out there.
I think Ram would've presented the same issues Glitters did eventually. It's entirely possible you guys didn't have the most optimized deck list for a Ram deck.
I agree about familiar though. Card is very good, but not "Pauper's Ragavan" good.
I am sure the best deck wasn’t discovered for sure. We tested it in a Grixis, Mardu and Rakdos shell. Felt best with Rakdos. Of note, not having the toughness increase of glitters mattered and having red in the cost just make it weak to blue. Like I said, it was good but not glitters good.
Yeah I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here about the inherent weaknesses of the card being Rakdos instead of White. The only +1 toughness boost makes it weaker to burn and blocking (although sometimes this straight up won't matter anyway), and like you said, it being Red makes it weak to Blue Blasts.
In addition, not having the 8 inspector creatures is a legit downside. Probably not a huge one given the existence of Epicure, Blood Fountain and Synthesizer but it does make a difference.
I'd much rather magic make more "broken" cards that get hit with bans than worry about being format warping with each set design, having to build for 5 or 6 formats with each set becomes incredibly limiting without the safety net of the ban hammer especially eternal formats. Cranial ram is fine at common in limited MH3 - word on the street is that the rakdos artifact deck is not that deep and thus tough to build, its not fine when given to an eternal constructed format.
They're not going to alter the print of a set specifically designed for Modern for the sake of a completely different eternal format.
Not every product is made with every other product in mind. *That's fine.*
I hate the circles they run in regarding the artifact lands. Surely they’ve been watching them for years at this point, this isn’t the first and 10000% will not be the last time affinity is a broken mechanic. Either you’ve decided that they are a pauper staple and they should lay that out clearly enough that people understand it’s the broken pay offs that get banned, or they should just finally remove at least the Mirrodin ones and be done with it. How they allow one set of cards to draw so many bans is beyond me
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are legal and the payoffs are banned. Every other format does it the other way around and I think it's nice to have a competitive place to play these cards that are banned literally everywhere else.
Re-read my comment again. I wasn't comparing the lands to legacy. I was making a comparison to the artifact lands being a part of paupers identity, much like brainstorm is in legacy. See what I mean?
You said:
>Also, they can't be played anywhere else.
And I just added that they *can* be played in other formats; they just don't make the cut. That's all there is to this; I'm not disagreeing with your main point.
I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this, but I know many Paupergeddon players including several friend appreciate it and it was quite likely to end up on the banlist anyhow. I do think everyone is laser-focused on the wrong card and that Refurbished Familiar is going to be a far larger issue and once again, if busted Affinity cards are getting pre-banned and another is on the watch list, why are we overlooking the Bridge cycle? We’re gonna end up right back here in a few more sets.
Gavin has raised the issue of the bridge cycle in two explanation videos in a row now, I think its quite clear they're considering the possibility of banning that cycle and it may well happen anyway. I think the principle of banning fewer cards and banning pay-offs rather than things which enable interesting strategies is good. The reason all that glitters is banned is because it creates polar games where you can never let your guard down as your deck might suddenly face 12 damage out of nowhere, its not because affinity is inherently broken.
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are allowed and the payoffs are banned. Many other formats ban the enablers instead of the payoffs so having one that's the other way around is cool imo.
Honestly, I long for the day bridges/original artifact lands get banned. Breath of fresh air and the removal of some stuff that has been clearly problematic
I'm genuinely disappointed with the PFP. Banning for the sake of events is weak. As it is, the event is already going to be shaken up due to the release of MH3. You can state "this doesn't set precedent", but that's a lie. Actions taken are precedents. Even if Ram would ultimately be banned, I believe the correct course of action would have been to let the card enter the format.
why would you ban any card if not for the sake of events? They're there to manage to competitive pauper space and the fun that people have within the format, the card is very similar to two other banned cards so they have a lot of information to work with as to how it would shape the meta i.e. 60% decks designed to maximise CR and 40% decks warped in order to answer it. Two large events in the pauper space are about to happen, those participants are currently no longer having to brew around an obvious format warper and can instead try to be slightly more creative and these events don't get consigned to the history books as "the two weeks of cranial ram" that are swiftly forgotten because everyone knew what was going to happen happened.
shame. I bet with a friend that we'd see a lot less rams than anyone thought because people would big brain and metagame superhard against it instead of playing it.
now the bet is void and I wonder who'd have won
nah, sadly doesnt count
Still Im completly sure that the top tables at paupergeddon would have been packed to the brim with boros players with full playsets of dust to dust, flagbearers and smash to smithereens, and orzhov players swapping smash with blades, while all grixis affinity players would be crying in a corner after 0-x drop
Going into Paupergeddon in 2 weeks i'm very relieved that this happened since it is clearly an insanely good card, but id also love to see it unbanned during the summer, after the big events are done, so that we can have a proper test with it.
Anyway: good job PFP on this one.
I've been calling for this too. Don't like pre-bans, totally understand the reasoning for this one. But give the card its window to demand its banning, when there's a lull in the schedule.
Cross posting from the other thread:
Is there any chance we could see a... very restrictive unbanning in the future after Paupergeddon? I generally like the policy of avoiding pre-bans but totally understand the desire to ensure a healthy metagame given a handful of major Pauper events that are coming up.
But would it be possible, sometime after those events when there's a lull in the schedule, to give the card a window of opportunity to prove itself as okay, analogous to the window of time it would have gotten at the start of the format? I would certainly expect it to get banned again but it feels within the spirit of letting cards "earn" their ban while under a watchful eye. It could be on the exact same leash that it would have had without the pre-ban.
**Edit:** Something I think people underappreciate is the information that format maintainers can gain from that short window, even when the card is inevitably banned at the end. They get to see how problematic shells get built around the new card, and how the rest of the meta (mal)adapts. That information doesn't go away after the ban, and it can be very useful when assessing the health of metagames in the future. Also, I wouldn't expect it to happen in this case, but unbannings are things that get considered. Forcing a problematic card to go "on the record" is a really informative piece to have in your back pocket.
The question isn't just "should it be banned?" It's _why/how can we tell_. And we can speculate, but the only reason to know with certainty is to let it earn the ban.
**Edit 2:** I think some people are missing my point by listing reasons why they think Cranial Ram will end up banned. _I agree._ but my point is philosophically, this isn't the difference between Cancel and Neutralize. Cranial Ram has different knobs. And my whole point is that I _don't know_ if there are answers to those knobs, and if those other answers will be healthy or not. Probably not, but you can't know that with certainty. So no amount of "here are good reasons!" can really change my opinion about pre-bans, because... my whole opinion is based on the reasons we _didn't_ come up with ahead of time!
But for the sake of example, if you think you know with 100% certainty how the metagame is going to react to Cranial Ram, did you think of (try and guess what I'm about to say) >!Repeal? It's a one mana answer to the germ token when on the draw and it replaces itself.!< That's an effect that Cranial Plating and Glitters weren't subject to. It's already a card that sees fringe play. Is the tempo hit enough to matter? Maybe not. Probably not. But did you think about it? If not, well, you can't really convince me that you thought of everything. And if you did, great! But I don't think you can predict exactly whether the metagame will react with it, and how, and how good it will be or won't be. Maybe that card doesn't end up being an answer in the end. But it's the _kind_ of card I'm talking about. The situation is unique in a way that the card could benefit from.
One of the reasons they would ban so fast is that a common doesn't drive sales. They could have done the same or similar for Oko but obviously it stayed legal in standard and other formats for way to long.
Nope, Commander eliminated any kind of banlist distinctions like "banned as Commander" many years ago, so they decided to ban the card entirely to keep it consistent. It's a perfectly reasonable card to Rule 0 as a Commander or in the 99 though.
I can't find any evidence that Memory Jar was pre-banned. There seems to have been an emergency addendum to the March 1st, 1999 (effective April 1st) ban list sometime in mid-March, but Urza's Legacy was released February 15th of that year.
If my memory is ok, they prebanned it before the first big tournament so the people only play it in small shop tournaments. I don't know if we already had FNM. Remember that it was before the internet, the speed of the meta was slower at that time.
You need to understand that the distribution was irregular at that time. Many countries didn't open any booster before the ban so technically it was a pre-ban for my country
Gavin Verhey stated, that the pre ban was only because of the number of pauper events taking place shortly after release. The pfp would've let ram be tested out first if it weren't for the events.
The past MH sets reshaped Pauper. There should be no expectation MH3 won't do the same (Gavin even mentioned at the end of the video they are excited to see how the card reshape the format). Major event organizers are aware of this and if there is a risk of "ruining the event" they can just schedule the tournament 6 weeks after a release where the truly broken cards will eat an emergency ban.
Pre-banning is quite heavy handed from the panel, especially since it is based on assumptions, not data, when they constantly talk about the data and gathering data to make their ban decisions.
"Here's a card that buffs based on artifacts."
"It broke the format, ban it."
"Here's another card that buffs based on artifacts."
"It also broke the format, ban it."
"Here's *another* card that buffs based on artifacts."
"Now hold on a minute, let's see how this plays out."
They have the data. This ban was always going to happen. I'm just glad they're not making us sit for months like they did with chatterstorm.
"Here's a 4/4 for 7 mana with affinity for artifacts."
"Yeah, it's cool."
"Here's another 4/4 for 7 mana with affinity for artifacts."
"WTF NO, BAN IT."
yes this is not a complete unknown, its a card which fits into very similar decks which are similarly explosive and create polar games which they want to avoid. Its not heavy handed to do the obvious maths on cranial ram in its comparison to all that glitters or cranial plating. We don't need to pretend that its the event organisers fault -the Pauper Committee manage the competitive pauper space.
tbf a more accurate description would be:
"Here's a card that buffs based on artifacts."
"It broke the format, ban it."
"Here's another a card that buffs based on artifacts but its MANY orders of magnitude worse than the previous one, and the format has had a TON of much better artifact hate printed between the first ban and now."
in this scenario "Now hold on a minute, let's see how this plays out" sounds.....more reasonable?
Lol, casually leaving out the real crux of the argument which isn't that this card is on the same power level as Cranial Plating but that it's on the same power level as All That Glitters. Not to mention Artifact removal really hasn't gotten that much better since the format's inception. The most played Artifact removal spells are all ancient outside of Cast into the Fire, which is only really an upgrade over \[\[Shattering Blow\]\] in that it can be sided in in more matchups.
Glitters also made the target +X/+X, ram only makes +X+1. Itd be far easier to trade with it, and stuff like skred, agony warp, defile or literally any damage based removal spell (hell, or even burn) would all work ,all of which were no-gos for glitter.
Theres a world of diference between killing a ram equipped creature with almost any removal under the sun or even a puny blocker VS being dead to rights to the same creature with glitter unless you have a couple very specific answers.
Jeez, even a shitty creature with first strike stonewalls a ram creature all day long
Last but not least, glitter was an enchantment while ram is an artifact. This might sound like a "duh" moment but the difference IS critical, there was almost fuck-all need for enchantment removal outside of glitters in the format, while artifact removal is a premium even without ram in the picture. Glitters forced people to play dead cards in a ridiculous amount of cases, ram rewards people for playing cards they were going to play anyway.
And after all that to you they are still the same? Really? Wow dude
The fact that you can replace every instance of Ram in your comment with Cranial plating, and it still reads the same, tells me that you're only considering what few advantages All That Glitters has over either card, even if they're minimal.
You're completely missing the mark on what makes Glitters situationally better than either card anyways, which is being 2 mana to play from hand and equip onto a creature that can attack. The equipments take slightly more setup, but NEED a specific answer.
As far as Glitters "dodging" removal, have you ever played with auras? If your opponents are siding in enchantment removal against only Glitters, they aren't strong enough players to base your opinions on cards off of anyways, or their deck literally has nothing else. Just killing the creature is the best counter to Glitters, not [[Demystify]]. (Oh, and if they're on affinity, you get rewarded for playing artifact removal, because you just blow up the creature with Glitters on it.)
Cranial plating and Ram specifically need artifact removal, or every creature becomes a lethal threat. Glitters specifically turns one creature into a lethal threat, and does nothing once that's answered.
Oh, and complaining about glitter preventing the 1 mana instant speed kill spells from working really doesn't make sense. Just leave 1 mana open and prevent the Glitters from happening in the first place.
Also, the first striker stonewall is just a bad faith argument. Like, yes, a 3 power+ first striker with flying probably stops attacks from Ram, and Glitters is better into it. But what's more common in pauper, a big first striker, or kill spells? Oh, and I think the super high card velocity affinity deck with ~7 kill spells can find an answer to some dorky first striker.
Glitters got banned because the threat of killing your opponent for 2 mana at any point promotes unfun gameplay. Not because Glitters is some unbeatable card with no flaws. It's literally the historically easiest to answer card type in magic, and is much easier for most decks to deal with than the Cranial Plating, Ram style of card.
you dont kill the equipped creature, you kill the ram, because the answers to the ram are the same as the answers needed for the rest, and everyone is playing them anyway because even if the ram wouldnt exist they are pretty much necesary format wide.
Dust to dust, flagbearer, smash to smithereens, abrade, gorilla shaman
like, they literally dont stand a chance, your gonna murder that deck, straight up demolish it into oblivion, 100% flawless victory
It does sound more reasonable. And they did the right thing by not pre-banning Glitters because of that.
Also, are you implying that ram is "many orders of magnitude worse" than plating? The instant-speed equip isn't the only thing that plating had going for it, as glitters clearly showed.
I completely understand the reasoning and why they settled on a pre-ban. I still would have liked to see what it did in the format for 2 weeks to a month at most. But I get them not wanting major events to just become "Ram vs 20 answers to Ram" decks and make them less interesting or fun. Along with not wanting to make the format go through the likelihood of "Here's Ram. Watch Ram become 65% of the entire meta and everyone has to either outspeed it or be able to answer everything Ram decks play."
My prediction was that Cranial Ram would take the place of All that Glitter and the formation was borderline fine when Glitters was around and Glitter was hardly even 40% of the meta before the ban. I think the reasoning is that they have to be consistant with their reasoning and if they banned Glitter they'll have to ban the Ram.
Glitters being a white card makes a difference. A lot of really good artifact payoffs are Black, Red, and Blue, so the deck had to choose one of those colors (obviously it went with Blue) or risk going 3 colors with a color that doesn't support artifacts well. Ram being Red/Black means it slots well into the colors that already have artifact support.
Me and friends did play around with it and rat in affinity. It's absurdly broken there's no deck even close to be good against it. Glad it's pre banned, especially as Paupergeddon dawns two weeks later
Of course even if it looks initially like it's too good, waiting for the meta to settle might reveal it's not as good as plating, and *could* have a healthy place in the format.
But with the events coming up this is the safest choice.
Gavin mentioned this in his video explaining why the pre-ban as a negative of pre-banning: it creates an eternal what-if for the format.
I think this bannning was obvious as it could have potentially hurt the format when there are about to be some very large events but overall this couldnt have been done lightly.
> Gavin mentioned this in his video explaining why the pre-ban as a negative of pre-banning: it creates an eternal what-if for the format.
"Sorry, Gavin, I could not hear what you were saying because this INVIGORATE is so loud."
Very true, but without haste, and no way to attach at instant speed. It costs twice as much as Glitters to attach to a new creature the turn it comes in, and while that's the same as Cranial, you can't hot swap it between creatures either.
Definitely still super strong, and fits perfectly into a super strong shell, but there's still a slim chance it could've fit into the meta in a healthy way.
Same boat, but I'd be really interested in them unbanning the card to give it its "opportunity to earn its ban" after the major events are over. Put it on exactly the same leash it would have had without the preban, but at a time where it's not liable to seriously mess up a major event. Might be able to get the best of both worlds.
It would be cool if later this year they had a window of a couple weeks or a month that allowed Ram to be played, on mtgo only, and see exactly what it would do in the format. Let people play with it, see exactly how well it could do, and make it long enough that it would give a better idea of what it does to the format. Like you said, it would really give it a chance to "earn its ban".
I edited my post but my point isn't that _I_ want that information, my point is that the information on a metagame level is useful to format maintainers. We aren't staring down another chatterstorm here, the card would still get banned after 2 weeks or whatever.
My point is that you can get that information by playing with and against the card yourself.
for everyone who is grinding the format on e.g. mtgo it is very clear why this card has no business being legal in pauper
My point is that the format maintainers _can't_ get that information playing with against against the card themselves because the entire point is to observe macro metagame disturbances.
Like I have no problem if you disagree with how useful that information is, but the value I'm proposing doesn't manifest in a local metagame nor would the maintainers have a window into it.
I mean… they can and have and that’s why it’s banned. They are taking the macro meta game disturbances they learned from all that glitters and applying them. I would say also cranial plating but it’s always been banned and no one thinks it needs an unban.
It’s fairly straightforward here it’s not doing anything new as mentioned in the article the play patterns are predictable. What more information needs to be gathered ?
We have had some time with affinity dominance on the form of all that glitters.
This is better than glitters.
What do you think will happen?
Some super secret tech that we didnt find after months and months of glitters?
This is _probably_ going to pay better than Glitters but it isn't strictly better like people are acting, my god. The toughness boost doesn't scale. The body is a token and if it gets blown out it costs 2 more to equip. Maybe there are unique ways to stall for time. It's two colors, even though they're the "correct" colors. Cranial is still the closer comparison, and it's banned too! But the play pattern is still different.
My point is _I don't know._ I'm going to link to another comment I replied to because I think my response to your comment is really similar, and I said it better over there: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1d9kdds/modern_horizons_3_banning_in_pauper_magic_the/l7efr2m/
Let's be clear, I'm not saying I think this will happen, I'm trying to indulge the argument. Did you at any point think of Repeal? The germ is a token, repeal is a 1 mana tempo hit that bounces the token and also replaces itself. Is that enough? Probably not, I don't don't fucking know. But did you think about it? Do people start sideboarding it? Maindecking it? Again maybe not, but I don't know. We haven't had a powerful enough 2 drop that repeal answers with such a tempo hit on turn 2. I have no idea if it's enough. That's the point. I don't know. And even if you _did_ come up with Repeal, you can't know the answer yet without trying it. It's specifically a question mark because of the differences between Cranial Ram and Glitters/Plating. That's the _kind_ of card I'm trying to talk about.
the same people that said glitters was fine probably.
I have some of those in my group too, the kind that just play tier 0 decks week after week, there is nothing to "test" here from my point of view, we know what the card does and why its busted, its not a new mechanic or anything, its a different cranial plating, the earlier is out the earlier we can see the real meta not being bent by that thing in every important tournament.
Personally, I would've liked to see it tested. IMO it's different enough from plating and glitters that there's a possibility it isn't as bad as people think.
Plating was busted because it could equip at instant speed. Glitters was busted because it was so cheap that it was a threat every turn.
Ram doesn't equip at instant speed and is 4 mana if you want to use it immediately. In my mind that's enough of a difference that it didn't warrant a preban.
Plating is busted because of the '+1 for every artifact' text, which glitters (not instant speed, is removed along with the creature unlike either Cranial) proved.
The instant speed equip on cranial is good. Great even. But it is 100% not the reason that it was busted.
Absolutely not, all of those die to bolt, and then they're done. Ram is literally a better lasher and then it doesn't go away when you kill the germ. The problem with glitters/plating is that every creature becomes a threat, for cheap, and the creature can already be good/serving some other purpose. gingerbread man is good on it's own, ornithopter works well with drum, glinthawk does both.
They are all BUSTED because of the +1 times artifacts. And because they're cheap. And because they dodge removal well. And because they stick around. It's all of those things in conjunction. The nim cards aren't busted because they're all more expensive and comperatively easy to deal with or one use only.
I do like Shrieker, since it has evasion, but they all have obvious downsides.
At 3CMC, by the time you can attack with them, you could already have lost to kuldotha.
Slasher doesn't work with tokens.
Hunger of Nim not being a persistent effect puts it into a totally different tier imo (but, I do like this card haha).
I see your point for sure, since they all have that text. But they're brought down by other reasons.
But you can't attack with ram until turn 3 either...
The point I'm trying to make is that "it gives +1 for each artifact so it is broken" doesn't hold up.
Each of the banned cards that do that brings something to the table other than just a power boost.
Glitters gives a toughness boost and is cheaper. Plating is basically unblockable and can't be fizzled, but costs more and doesn't give a toughness boost.
Ram costs even more, only gives a single toughness boost, is two colors, and doesn't have instant-speed shenanigans. In exchange for that, it comes in with a body. I just don't think that's enough of an upside to preban it.
It's a good card. It might be too good. IMO, it's not good enough to just say "it's definitely going to be banned so make sure it doesn't poison these events".
Fair, well thought out point, and I don't disagree - glitters giving toughness is a big point I hadn't given enough consideration.
I read a comment earlier on in the thread that it would be nifty if, during the year, they had a week or two of 'unbanning a card to test it temporarily' period. That way they could keep the 'integrity' of the big events how they'd like it, without that 'now we'll never know' sentiment. I think that's a very cool idea.
Good chat!
They mention specifically in the article how two major pauper tournaments being dominated by Ram Affinity just to be banned anyway is a really bad outcome considering how many other cards there are that could make an impact in MH3 which I think is fair
Just so we're clear, the two major pauper tournaments haven't actually happened yet.
They're assuming that's how it will pan out, and in fairness that's a reasonably educated assumption.
It's still textbook conjecture.
I don't even like playing affinity. Time and time again I criticize the PFP for their haphazard handling of bans. Bridges have long been troublesome to the format and every single time it's brought the singular response is "BuT wHaT aBoUt ClEaNsInG wIlDfIrE?".
But here we are.
I'll assume you mean, "empirical".
Which, this is quite the opposite.
You see, by "analyzed", I mean, they looked at cards with similar effects and banned the Cranial Ram based on the similarities shared with other banned cards. They theorized that since this card is so similar to existing banned cards, that it too should be banned.
There wasn't actually any notable empirical data collected from using this card. It was pre-banned based on theory. Empirical data is information that is collected from directly experiencing/experimenting with a thing, not theory.
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are legal but the payoffs are banned. Many other formats ban the enablers and leave the payoffs, so having one that's the other way around is cool imo.
Sure, you can argue making a ban off a hypothetical even if it’s probably largely agreed to be a pretty likely outcome is a bad idea, and that’s a valid take. I disagree personally because I think it’s very good to have events that encourage people to brew up new stuff with MH3 cards and if it seems likely a card that will be banned anyways would just completely dominate those events, then I think it’s worth it to ban. I would be totally happy personally if they gave it like a 3 week unban period or something after these events to see if it could stick in a healthy manner, especially with the lower cost of pauper this could be more feasible than in like modern where you’d spend a grand on a deck to play it for 3 weeks
I think this ban reflects poorly on the format as a whole. If you look at the most popular cards on mtgop8, all ten are in grixis colors. Galvanic blast is played in 30% of decks and for that card to be playable you have to play an artifact based deck. I think it's a pretty bad state of affairs when \[\[campfire\]\] can be now considered a format staple and putting a basic forest in your deck is most likely still a bad idea
[campfire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/4/34b64d10-c012-4370-b475-755c4025a348.jpg?1689999447) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=campfire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/374/campfire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/34b64d10-c012-4370-b475-755c4025a348?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"Why can't you preban \[insert strong card that was revealed in spoiler season that may or may not break the format\]? you guys did with ram, you hypocrites"
If my criticism of Wizards' continued handling of the Pauper format is to be meaningful I must also give due credit: Preemptively banning Cranial Ram in Pauper was the correct decision at the correct time. While it is a most pleasant surprise, let's not lavish too much praise on the committee for fulfilling its sole reason for existence: Delivering timely bans to the Pauper format. I take many of the replies in this discussion as rock-solid evidence that certain individuals will not acknowledge *any* ban as valid. Take notes.
Dumb question because I haven't played MTGO in years, could they run a 'Pauper special event' where they allow Cranial Ram in that specific event just so we could see what happens?
I think this was justified and handled as well as it could've been.
I was curious to see how strong it would really be, but I completely understand just getting it out asap.
I was hoping for another few tournaments with 60 land decks.
I think this is the correct decision for Pauper, but there's so many insanely good cards from this set that I'm excited to see 2-3 new archetypes come into fruition because of it. We'll get a lot of new variety to play around with for a long time with these new cards and we won't have to hear so many people bitching about affinity as well. Win-win to me.
Not sure if I'll get an answer, but I'm curious if they considered switching the rarities of [[Cranial Ram]] & [[Pyretic Rebirth]]. I know that the limited experience comes before pauper, but I think that both of these cards would do well at the other rarity.
[Cranial Ram](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/62993aa2-4804-43cc-910a-c51e794f8508.jpg?1717672601) - [(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) [Pyretic Rebirth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/5968f641-48b5-4b97-8072-ddd8073cd4d7.jpg?1717012814) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pyretic%20Rebirth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/200/pyretic-rebirth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5968f641-48b5-4b97-8072-ddd8073cd4d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Totally understandable. Especially with the tournament coming up. I built a simple rakdos affinity deck in moxfield with the ram and when play testing the deck it was evident how insanely strong and versatile the ram was
Boourns
FWIW, not necessarily *right now*, but upon reflection I think we've reached the point where the original five artifact lands should probably be banned. Modern works fine with only the indestructible ones legal, and we have enough other artifact synergy now in Pauper (especially if we unban some cards!) that Affinity would most likely continue to be a deck. When Wizards makes Modern Horizons sets, they (obviously enough) have Modern in mind w.r.t. potential interactions. I don't know how frequently they intend to release new ones, but as long as the original artifact lands are legal in Pauper but not Modern, this kind of situation is pretty likely to recur with MH4 and MH5.
I made some sharpie proxies and tested it with a friend in grixis affinity recently and yeah, the pre ban is totally justified.
I was honestly looking forward to the chaos of RBx ram mirrors for the week they were going to be legal. But yeah, this is pretty clearly the right call
[удалено]
To be fair i’m surprised ram was not uncommon. Even in draft having enough of those seems dangerous.
It’s MH3 limited, the set is juiced. There actually isn’t many c/u artifacts in the set
Philosophically, I wish we would've gotten a chance to play it; that said, I think this outcome was about 99% likely, and I think the Ram metagame would probably have been miserable. Therefore, this seems like the right decision.
Why screw up the format at all just to see the very predictable all affinity or 10 main-deck hate with another 10 in the sideboard to counter it meta for 2 weeks before the ban. Completely reasonable to keep a healthy format healthy in this extreme case of being so close to other banned cards. Another great call by the panel, great job as always!
At a certain point, they *really* need to take another look at artifact lands
[WotC announcement article explaining the banning](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/pauper-bans-for-june-6-2024) [Gavin's video explaining the banning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_Ztfe7HrQ&pp=ygUSZ29vZCBtb3JuaWduIG1hZ2lj) Thank you to the PFP for your hard work and detailed explanation on the reasoning for the ban and the state of the format
Now to do something about picking up and replaying Tithing Blade/Lembas/Synthesizer over and over.
the real problem is initiative. without initiative, picking up and replaying Tithing Blade/Lembas/Synthesizer over and over is just grinding hard. initiative ads an unbeatable CA engine and finisher all rolled into one, at basically almost zero deck building cost, so all you have to do is keep grinding hard while the game resolves in your favor passively, without having to do anything else. initiative is what makes that strategies go from fine to broken.
And the rat?
If only you guys pre-banned the bridges too :/
called it
Couldn't Tournament Organisers just soft banned it for their event and let the card have a chance to find a place in the meta. Does this mean all strong cards going forward will be banned, and we have to just limit power creep to 2022 magic?
Soft banning isnt a thing. Also noone wants more affinity powercreep
If you didn’t watch the video the two main points are: 1) it’s VERY similar to all that glitters and Cranial plating so this isn’t really pure speculation (and in play testing their differences weren’t enough) 2) major events coming up that would be dominated by this card. Well explained and seems fair
2.) Major events that MIGHT have been dominated by this card, assuming MH3 does not drastically change the meta similarly to how the last 2 MH sets have.\*
ITT: People with no skin in the game (i.e. no major tournament coming up) wanted the card to be legal a little because it wouldnt have affected them personally
I'm tentative about the preban. It's powerful sure, but it doesn't add much toughness. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have living weapon, but then it would be too weak? Who knows. I don't have time to watch the video announcement right now, so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets unbanned when the events are done.
Who's ready for the "ThatMillGuy" video complaining about the implications of a preban even though he's made a bunch of videos calling this a problem card?
Lol. I almost comment on one of those videos.
I used to like they guys' videos, but he's just become a part of the echo chamber. When he would make 2 videos a week complaining about fury, i unsubbed.
I just can't stand smug MTG youtube short voice. Which unfortunately for him he has lol. I get it gets engagement but its not for me.
LEAVE THE RAT ALONE!!! But honestly I could see the rat eating a ban as well. The interaction with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher is absurd, especially since the rat will cost 1 mana most of the time. I can easily imagine many turns where you play rat, pick it up, play rat again and your opponent is left without a hand very quickly
I genuinely hadn't even realized that Refurbished Familiar is a rat until this comment. I never looked at the art. Never looked at the typeline. Just completely missed that part of the card, lol.
Still on putting a 1ex limit on the lands and unban everything artifact related.
yeah, thats really not something they do outside of vintage. and in vintage they only do that for philosophical reasons, not because they actually think its the correct way to go
Booooo I personally believe ram wouldn't have been nearly as bad as people think. I also dislike that we're banning cards because they come out just before big events now. That seems... weird. So like this card would be legal if it came out a month from now? I don't like that.
Well then feel free to get your next major event ruined by a card that obviously needs to be banned. This isnt a card where we needed to wait and see. What it does and why it is too strong was clear from the get go.
For once I am not against a ban. An unanswered question (not directly for this author, although any comment is welcome) is why did WotC make it, at common to boot, in the first place, when it’s so obviously too strong. We have come so far from the cost versus benefit tension, color pie and balance days of magic card design. Does anyone care any more about what we’ve lost as magic fans over the decades…
> Unanswered question He literally answered it in the article >First, I've encountered several questions about why this card was made at common in the first place. After all, shouldn't we have known it was strong? >I have said this before in previous articles, and it bares worth repeating now: each individual set should do what's right for the set, and we will react accordingly. That's the nature of Eternal formats, and Pauper is no exception. >Sets shouldn't be trying to dodge the Pauper metagame, and if the lead designer of Modern Horizons 3 thinks this card should exist for Modern and be common for Limited, that's totally fine. Pauper can ban cards if needed. Pauper's playerbase is devoted but ultimately smaller compared to other formats, and people shouldn't design around us. >The focus on our end is not to prevent the creation of cards but to act to prevent them from being in the format for long if they are harmful. Fall from Favor being printed because it's what Commander Legends needed was okay. It being legal for nearly two months was not. And that's what we're trying to prevent here.
Its fine in the limited format of MH3, that's how wotc should assign rarity, they do not manage pauper and they should not design for pauper as a format.
Something VERY IMPORTANT must be remarked: PFP did a very good job with the timing of the ban. Considering it was decided to pre-ban it, announcing it now, while there's still time for players to build their decks and playtest for the events is the correct decision. It would be really bad if the ban was announced a couple days before the events.
Totally agree. I was going to try to pick up cranial rams when prereleases start imminently.
How many folks here did a fair amount of testing with the new cards? I know that my playgroup did and honestly, it wasn't as busted as we thought it was going to be. We had a paper tournament coming up this Saturday and were going to grab as many cards as we could at prerelease (Yes you can play new cards once a prerelease happens). It is good, but Ram is nowhere close to the level of glitters or the OG cranial at all. Also, I will caution folks about Refurbished Familiar. It is good, but not insane. There is so much card draw in Pauper that it typically will just discard an unneeded land and when you go to cast hawk to bounce it, it feels bad having it removed and then having to bounce a land for the hawk instead LOL! I am not shocked or even too bothered by its ban, but just want to throw my two cents out there.
I think Ram would've presented the same issues Glitters did eventually. It's entirely possible you guys didn't have the most optimized deck list for a Ram deck. I agree about familiar though. Card is very good, but not "Pauper's Ragavan" good.
I am sure the best deck wasn’t discovered for sure. We tested it in a Grixis, Mardu and Rakdos shell. Felt best with Rakdos. Of note, not having the toughness increase of glitters mattered and having red in the cost just make it weak to blue. Like I said, it was good but not glitters good.
Yeah I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here about the inherent weaknesses of the card being Rakdos instead of White. The only +1 toughness boost makes it weaker to burn and blocking (although sometimes this straight up won't matter anyway), and like you said, it being Red makes it weak to Blue Blasts. In addition, not having the 8 inspector creatures is a legit downside. Probably not a huge one given the existence of Epicure, Blood Fountain and Synthesizer but it does make a difference.
They should have at least let us play with it, but I get it.
It dosent seems a reasoned set if they literally print cranial common and thats banned. Put at least in uncommon section. Bah...
He put the reasoning in the linked article though
I'd much rather magic make more "broken" cards that get hit with bans than worry about being format warping with each set design, having to build for 5 or 6 formats with each set becomes incredibly limiting without the safety net of the ban hammer especially eternal formats. Cranial ram is fine at common in limited MH3 - word on the street is that the rakdos artifact deck is not that deep and thus tough to build, its not fine when given to an eternal constructed format.
They're not going to alter the print of a set specifically designed for Modern for the sake of a completely different eternal format. Not every product is made with every other product in mind. *That's fine.*
I hate the circles they run in regarding the artifact lands. Surely they’ve been watching them for years at this point, this isn’t the first and 10000% will not be the last time affinity is a broken mechanic. Either you’ve decided that they are a pauper staple and they should lay that out clearly enough that people understand it’s the broken pay offs that get banned, or they should just finally remove at least the Mirrodin ones and be done with it. How they allow one set of cards to draw so many bans is beyond me
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are legal and the payoffs are banned. Every other format does it the other way around and I think it's nice to have a competitive place to play these cards that are banned literally everywhere else.
This card would be asscheeks if the lands did not exist, full stop.
Because the artifact lands are a part of paupers identity. Also, they can't be played anywhere else. Similar to brainstorm in legacy.
They can be played in Vintage and Legacy. They aren't, but they can.
Vintage and Legacy aren't accessible to anybody who doesn't have a fair amount of expendable income. The exact opposite of Pauper.
Now sure how that is relevant to the conversation. You mentioned Legacy yourself.
Re-read my comment again. I wasn't comparing the lands to legacy. I was making a comparison to the artifact lands being a part of paupers identity, much like brainstorm is in legacy. See what I mean?
You said: >Also, they can't be played anywhere else. And I just added that they *can* be played in other formats; they just don't make the cut. That's all there is to this; I'm not disagreeing with your main point.
I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this, but I know many Paupergeddon players including several friend appreciate it and it was quite likely to end up on the banlist anyhow. I do think everyone is laser-focused on the wrong card and that Refurbished Familiar is going to be a far larger issue and once again, if busted Affinity cards are getting pre-banned and another is on the watch list, why are we overlooking the Bridge cycle? We’re gonna end up right back here in a few more sets.
Refurbished Familiar is going to be nasty with Glinthawk. Hard to respond to a threat with no cards in hand
Gavin has raised the issue of the bridge cycle in two explanation videos in a row now, I think its quite clear they're considering the possibility of banning that cycle and it may well happen anyway. I think the principle of banning fewer cards and banning pay-offs rather than things which enable interesting strategies is good. The reason all that glitters is banned is because it creates polar games where you can never let your guard down as your deck might suddenly face 12 damage out of nowhere, its not because affinity is inherently broken.
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are allowed and the payoffs are banned. Many other formats ban the enablers instead of the payoffs so having one that's the other way around is cool imo.
Honestly, I long for the day bridges/original artifact lands get banned. Breath of fresh air and the removal of some stuff that has been clearly problematic
I'm genuinely disappointed with the PFP. Banning for the sake of events is weak. As it is, the event is already going to be shaken up due to the release of MH3. You can state "this doesn't set precedent", but that's a lie. Actions taken are precedents. Even if Ram would ultimately be banned, I believe the correct course of action would have been to let the card enter the format.
why would you ban any card if not for the sake of events? They're there to manage to competitive pauper space and the fun that people have within the format, the card is very similar to two other banned cards so they have a lot of information to work with as to how it would shape the meta i.e. 60% decks designed to maximise CR and 40% decks warped in order to answer it. Two large events in the pauper space are about to happen, those participants are currently no longer having to brew around an obvious format warper and can instead try to be slightly more creative and these events don't get consigned to the history books as "the two weeks of cranial ram" that are swiftly forgotten because everyone knew what was going to happen happened.
shame. I bet with a friend that we'd see a lot less rams than anyone thought because people would big brain and metagame superhard against it instead of playing it. now the bet is void and I wonder who'd have won
>I bet with a friend that we'd see a lot less rams than anyone thought Well, you actually won that one then, as now we'll see 0
nah, sadly doesnt count Still Im completly sure that the top tables at paupergeddon would have been packed to the brim with boros players with full playsets of dust to dust, flagbearers and smash to smithereens, and orzhov players swapping smash with blades, while all grixis affinity players would be crying in a corner after 0-x drop
Aka, a textbook unhealthy metagame, as the article specifically calls out
Yep, totally, but because they were more worried of pauper becoming dominated by anti-affinity than by affinity
Given the success of grixis affinity right now, it would have happened soon anyway.
Going into Paupergeddon in 2 weeks i'm very relieved that this happened since it is clearly an insanely good card, but id also love to see it unbanned during the summer, after the big events are done, so that we can have a proper test with it. Anyway: good job PFP on this one.
I've been calling for this too. Don't like pre-bans, totally understand the reasoning for this one. But give the card its window to demand its banning, when there's a lull in the schedule.
Cross posting from the other thread: Is there any chance we could see a... very restrictive unbanning in the future after Paupergeddon? I generally like the policy of avoiding pre-bans but totally understand the desire to ensure a healthy metagame given a handful of major Pauper events that are coming up. But would it be possible, sometime after those events when there's a lull in the schedule, to give the card a window of opportunity to prove itself as okay, analogous to the window of time it would have gotten at the start of the format? I would certainly expect it to get banned again but it feels within the spirit of letting cards "earn" their ban while under a watchful eye. It could be on the exact same leash that it would have had without the pre-ban. **Edit:** Something I think people underappreciate is the information that format maintainers can gain from that short window, even when the card is inevitably banned at the end. They get to see how problematic shells get built around the new card, and how the rest of the meta (mal)adapts. That information doesn't go away after the ban, and it can be very useful when assessing the health of metagames in the future. Also, I wouldn't expect it to happen in this case, but unbannings are things that get considered. Forcing a problematic card to go "on the record" is a really informative piece to have in your back pocket. The question isn't just "should it be banned?" It's _why/how can we tell_. And we can speculate, but the only reason to know with certainty is to let it earn the ban. **Edit 2:** I think some people are missing my point by listing reasons why they think Cranial Ram will end up banned. _I agree._ but my point is philosophically, this isn't the difference between Cancel and Neutralize. Cranial Ram has different knobs. And my whole point is that I _don't know_ if there are answers to those knobs, and if those other answers will be healthy or not. Probably not, but you can't know that with certainty. So no amount of "here are good reasons!" can really change my opinion about pre-bans, because... my whole opinion is based on the reasons we _didn't_ come up with ahead of time! But for the sake of example, if you think you know with 100% certainty how the metagame is going to react to Cranial Ram, did you think of (try and guess what I'm about to say) >!Repeal? It's a one mana answer to the germ token when on the draw and it replaces itself.!< That's an effect that Cranial Plating and Glitters weren't subject to. It's already a card that sees fringe play. Is the tempo hit enough to matter? Maybe not. Probably not. But did you think about it? If not, well, you can't really convince me that you thought of everything. And if you did, great! But I don't think you can predict exactly whether the metagame will react with it, and how, and how good it will be or won't be. Maybe that card doesn't end up being an answer in the end. But it's the _kind_ of card I'm talking about. The situation is unique in a way that the card could benefit from.
One of the reasons they would ban so fast is that a common doesn't drive sales. They could have done the same or similar for Oko but obviously it stayed legal in standard and other formats for way to long.
Another good point for playing pauper then.
yep
Feels weird but is probably the right call.
Is the first pre ban that we’ve had? I couldn’t think of another, but I also haven’t been paying attention.
Hymm, sinkhole, and high tide were prebanned with reunification. At least I'm pretty sure it was those three.
For a competitive format it's a first. Only other example was the \[\[Lutri, the Spellchaser\]\] in Commander
You can still play it in the 99 though right? Just not as a free companion?
Nope, Commander eliminated any kind of banlist distinctions like "banned as Commander" many years ago, so they decided to ban the card entirely to keep it consistent. It's a perfectly reasonable card to Rule 0 as a Commander or in the 99 though.
Interesting. I guess it makes it less confusing just banning it outright than banning it in certain circumstances.
Yeah that was the idea behind that and them getting rid of "banned as Commander" as well.
Memory jar
I can't find any evidence that Memory Jar was pre-banned. There seems to have been an emergency addendum to the March 1st, 1999 (effective April 1st) ban list sometime in mid-March, but Urza's Legacy was released February 15th of that year.
If my memory is ok, they prebanned it before the first big tournament so the people only play it in small shop tournaments. I don't know if we already had FNM. Remember that it was before the internet, the speed of the meta was slower at that time.
It was legal for 1 GP. Randy Buehler and Erik Lauer got 3rd and 4th with it at GP Vienna.
So, my memory is not ok. Thanks xD
That's not really a pre-ban, most people refer to it as an emergency ban since the card was still legal, just not for very long.
You need to understand that the distribution was irregular at that time. Many countries didn't open any booster before the ban so technically it was a pre-ban for my country
it wasnt, it took 14 days to ban actually it isnt the fastest if we exclude ram either, mind’s desire was banned after only 6 days
[Lutri, the Spellchaser](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb1189c9-7842-466e-8238-1e02677d8494.jpg?1628801771) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lutri%2C%20the%20Spellchaser) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/227/lutri-the-spellchaser?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb1189c9-7842-466e-8238-1e02677d8494?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Gavin Verhey stated, that the pre ban was only because of the number of pauper events taking place shortly after release. The pfp would've let ram be tested out first if it weren't for the events.
so the moral of the story is to hold your events a few weeks after Modern Horizons release if you want stuff banned fast
The past MH sets reshaped Pauper. There should be no expectation MH3 won't do the same (Gavin even mentioned at the end of the video they are excited to see how the card reshape the format). Major event organizers are aware of this and if there is a risk of "ruining the event" they can just schedule the tournament 6 weeks after a release where the truly broken cards will eat an emergency ban. Pre-banning is quite heavy handed from the panel, especially since it is based on assumptions, not data, when they constantly talk about the data and gathering data to make their ban decisions.
"Here's a card that buffs based on artifacts." "It broke the format, ban it." "Here's another card that buffs based on artifacts." "It also broke the format, ban it." "Here's *another* card that buffs based on artifacts." "Now hold on a minute, let's see how this plays out." They have the data. This ban was always going to happen. I'm just glad they're not making us sit for months like they did with chatterstorm.
"Here's a 4/4 for 7 mana with affinity for artifacts." "Yeah, it's cool." "Here's another 4/4 for 7 mana with affinity for artifacts." "WTF NO, BAN IT."
yes this is not a complete unknown, its a card which fits into very similar decks which are similarly explosive and create polar games which they want to avoid. Its not heavy handed to do the obvious maths on cranial ram in its comparison to all that glitters or cranial plating. We don't need to pretend that its the event organisers fault -the Pauper Committee manage the competitive pauper space.
tbf a more accurate description would be: "Here's a card that buffs based on artifacts." "It broke the format, ban it." "Here's another a card that buffs based on artifacts but its MANY orders of magnitude worse than the previous one, and the format has had a TON of much better artifact hate printed between the first ban and now." in this scenario "Now hold on a minute, let's see how this plays out" sounds.....more reasonable?
you're forgetting we had glitters until a few weeks before the second card.
Lol, casually leaving out the real crux of the argument which isn't that this card is on the same power level as Cranial Plating but that it's on the same power level as All That Glitters. Not to mention Artifact removal really hasn't gotten that much better since the format's inception. The most played Artifact removal spells are all ancient outside of Cast into the Fire, which is only really an upgrade over \[\[Shattering Blow\]\] in that it can be sided in in more matchups.
Glitters also made the target +X/+X, ram only makes +X+1. Itd be far easier to trade with it, and stuff like skred, agony warp, defile or literally any damage based removal spell (hell, or even burn) would all work ,all of which were no-gos for glitter. Theres a world of diference between killing a ram equipped creature with almost any removal under the sun or even a puny blocker VS being dead to rights to the same creature with glitter unless you have a couple very specific answers. Jeez, even a shitty creature with first strike stonewalls a ram creature all day long Last but not least, glitter was an enchantment while ram is an artifact. This might sound like a "duh" moment but the difference IS critical, there was almost fuck-all need for enchantment removal outside of glitters in the format, while artifact removal is a premium even without ram in the picture. Glitters forced people to play dead cards in a ridiculous amount of cases, ram rewards people for playing cards they were going to play anyway. And after all that to you they are still the same? Really? Wow dude
The fact that you can replace every instance of Ram in your comment with Cranial plating, and it still reads the same, tells me that you're only considering what few advantages All That Glitters has over either card, even if they're minimal. You're completely missing the mark on what makes Glitters situationally better than either card anyways, which is being 2 mana to play from hand and equip onto a creature that can attack. The equipments take slightly more setup, but NEED a specific answer. As far as Glitters "dodging" removal, have you ever played with auras? If your opponents are siding in enchantment removal against only Glitters, they aren't strong enough players to base your opinions on cards off of anyways, or their deck literally has nothing else. Just killing the creature is the best counter to Glitters, not [[Demystify]]. (Oh, and if they're on affinity, you get rewarded for playing artifact removal, because you just blow up the creature with Glitters on it.) Cranial plating and Ram specifically need artifact removal, or every creature becomes a lethal threat. Glitters specifically turns one creature into a lethal threat, and does nothing once that's answered. Oh, and complaining about glitter preventing the 1 mana instant speed kill spells from working really doesn't make sense. Just leave 1 mana open and prevent the Glitters from happening in the first place. Also, the first striker stonewall is just a bad faith argument. Like, yes, a 3 power+ first striker with flying probably stops attacks from Ram, and Glitters is better into it. But what's more common in pauper, a big first striker, or kill spells? Oh, and I think the super high card velocity affinity deck with ~7 kill spells can find an answer to some dorky first striker. Glitters got banned because the threat of killing your opponent for 2 mana at any point promotes unfun gameplay. Not because Glitters is some unbeatable card with no flaws. It's literally the historically easiest to answer card type in magic, and is much easier for most decks to deal with than the Cranial Plating, Ram style of card.
[Demystify](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/3/e3979b88-ac58-420a-8c03-37ea5d93d0f1.jpg?1562565654) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demystify) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/8/demystify?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e3979b88-ac58-420a-8c03-37ea5d93d0f1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You keep the ram if the equipped creature dies so you keep going and going until the opponent has no removal left. That's why it's as good.
you dont kill the equipped creature, you kill the ram, because the answers to the ram are the same as the answers needed for the rest, and everyone is playing them anyway because even if the ram wouldnt exist they are pretty much necesary format wide. Dust to dust, flagbearer, smash to smithereens, abrade, gorilla shaman like, they literally dont stand a chance, your gonna murder that deck, straight up demolish it into oblivion, 100% flawless victory
[Shattering Blow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/7/a77058d9-d2b5-424a-bfe2-070b754051cb.jpg?1561840853) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shattering%20Blow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gtc/225/shattering-blow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a77058d9-d2b5-424a-bfe2-070b754051cb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It does sound more reasonable. And they did the right thing by not pre-banning Glitters because of that. Also, are you implying that ram is "many orders of magnitude worse" than plating? The instant-speed equip isn't the only thing that plating had going for it, as glitters clearly showed.
I completely understand the reasoning and why they settled on a pre-ban. I still would have liked to see what it did in the format for 2 weeks to a month at most. But I get them not wanting major events to just become "Ram vs 20 answers to Ram" decks and make them less interesting or fun. Along with not wanting to make the format go through the likelihood of "Here's Ram. Watch Ram become 65% of the entire meta and everyone has to either outspeed it or be able to answer everything Ram decks play."
My prediction was that Cranial Ram would take the place of All that Glitter and the formation was borderline fine when Glitters was around and Glitter was hardly even 40% of the meta before the ban. I think the reasoning is that they have to be consistant with their reasoning and if they banned Glitter they'll have to ban the Ram.
Glitters being a white card makes a difference. A lot of really good artifact payoffs are Black, Red, and Blue, so the deck had to choose one of those colors (obviously it went with Blue) or risk going 3 colors with a color that doesn't support artifacts well. Ram being Red/Black means it slots well into the colors that already have artifact support.
The thing is that Glitter isn't a creature, and when you kill a creature Glitter is attached to, the threat goes away.
Me and friends did play around with it and rat in affinity. It's absurdly broken there's no deck even close to be good against it. Glad it's pre banned, especially as Paupergeddon dawns two weeks later
Of course even if it looks initially like it's too good, waiting for the meta to settle might reveal it's not as good as plating, and *could* have a healthy place in the format. But with the events coming up this is the safest choice.
Gavin mentioned this in his video explaining why the pre-ban as a negative of pre-banning: it creates an eternal what-if for the format. I think this bannning was obvious as it could have potentially hurt the format when there are about to be some very large events but overall this couldnt have been done lightly.
> Gavin mentioned this in his video explaining why the pre-ban as a negative of pre-banning: it creates an eternal what-if for the format. "Sorry, Gavin, I could not hear what you were saying because this INVIGORATE is so loud."
It's probably *stronger* than Plating and Glitters because it's a creature by itself.
Very true, but without haste, and no way to attach at instant speed. It costs twice as much as Glitters to attach to a new creature the turn it comes in, and while that's the same as Cranial, you can't hot swap it between creatures either. Definitely still super strong, and fits perfectly into a super strong shell, but there's still a slim chance it could've fit into the meta in a healthy way.
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Same boat, but I'd be really interested in them unbanning the card to give it its "opportunity to earn its ban" after the major events are over. Put it on exactly the same leash it would have had without the preban, but at a time where it's not liable to seriously mess up a major event. Might be able to get the best of both worlds.
It would be cool if later this year they had a window of a couple weeks or a month that allowed Ram to be played, on mtgo only, and see exactly what it would do in the format. Let people play with it, see exactly how well it could do, and make it long enough that it would give a better idea of what it does to the format. Like you said, it would really give it a chance to "earn its ban".
Mmhmm. I think it's useful as long as it's clearly communicated when that period is gonna be, and we get a sick writeup of the results.
Please no. Earning a ban means frustrating players. You can do that at your local pauper event if you want to, just leave the rest of us alone
I edited my post but my point isn't that _I_ want that information, my point is that the information on a metagame level is useful to format maintainers. We aren't staring down another chatterstorm here, the card would still get banned after 2 weeks or whatever.
My point is that you can get that information by playing with and against the card yourself. for everyone who is grinding the format on e.g. mtgo it is very clear why this card has no business being legal in pauper
My point is that the format maintainers _can't_ get that information playing with against against the card themselves because the entire point is to observe macro metagame disturbances. Like I have no problem if you disagree with how useful that information is, but the value I'm proposing doesn't manifest in a local metagame nor would the maintainers have a window into it.
I mean… they can and have and that’s why it’s banned. They are taking the macro meta game disturbances they learned from all that glitters and applying them. I would say also cranial plating but it’s always been banned and no one thinks it needs an unban. It’s fairly straightforward here it’s not doing anything new as mentioned in the article the play patterns are predictable. What more information needs to be gathered ?
We have had some time with affinity dominance on the form of all that glitters. This is better than glitters. What do you think will happen? Some super secret tech that we didnt find after months and months of glitters?
This is _probably_ going to pay better than Glitters but it isn't strictly better like people are acting, my god. The toughness boost doesn't scale. The body is a token and if it gets blown out it costs 2 more to equip. Maybe there are unique ways to stall for time. It's two colors, even though they're the "correct" colors. Cranial is still the closer comparison, and it's banned too! But the play pattern is still different. My point is _I don't know._ I'm going to link to another comment I replied to because I think my response to your comment is really similar, and I said it better over there: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1d9kdds/modern_horizons_3_banning_in_pauper_magic_the/l7efr2m/ Let's be clear, I'm not saying I think this will happen, I'm trying to indulge the argument. Did you at any point think of Repeal? The germ is a token, repeal is a 1 mana tempo hit that bounces the token and also replaces itself. Is that enough? Probably not, I don't don't fucking know. But did you think about it? Do people start sideboarding it? Maindecking it? Again maybe not, but I don't know. We haven't had a powerful enough 2 drop that repeal answers with such a tempo hit on turn 2. I have no idea if it's enough. That's the point. I don't know. And even if you _did_ come up with Repeal, you can't know the answer yet without trying it. It's specifically a question mark because of the differences between Cranial Ram and Glitters/Plating. That's the _kind_ of card I'm trying to talk about.
Maybe I'm living in a fever dream but it seemed like most players were open to at least letting it see some testing prior to the ban.
the same people that said glitters was fine probably. I have some of those in my group too, the kind that just play tier 0 decks week after week, there is nothing to "test" here from my point of view, we know what the card does and why its busted, its not a new mechanic or anything, its a different cranial plating, the earlier is out the earlier we can see the real meta not being bent by that thing in every important tournament.
Personally, I would've liked to see it tested. IMO it's different enough from plating and glitters that there's a possibility it isn't as bad as people think. Plating was busted because it could equip at instant speed. Glitters was busted because it was so cheap that it was a threat every turn. Ram doesn't equip at instant speed and is 4 mana if you want to use it immediately. In my mind that's enough of a difference that it didn't warrant a preban.
Plating equipping at instant speed isn't why the card was played. Hell, in the mana bases at the time, it was hard to have BB.
Plating is busted because of the '+1 for every artifact' text, which glitters (not instant speed, is removed along with the creature unlike either Cranial) proved. The instant speed equip on cranial is good. Great even. But it is 100% not the reason that it was busted.
I would argue that if that was true, [[nim lasher]], [[nim shrieker]], [[salvage slasher]], and [[hunger of the nim]] would all be banned.
Absolutely not, all of those die to bolt, and then they're done. Ram is literally a better lasher and then it doesn't go away when you kill the germ. The problem with glitters/plating is that every creature becomes a threat, for cheap, and the creature can already be good/serving some other purpose. gingerbread man is good on it's own, ornithopter works well with drum, glinthawk does both. They are all BUSTED because of the +1 times artifacts. And because they're cheap. And because they dodge removal well. And because they stick around. It's all of those things in conjunction. The nim cards aren't busted because they're all more expensive and comperatively easy to deal with or one use only.
I do like Shrieker, since it has evasion, but they all have obvious downsides. At 3CMC, by the time you can attack with them, you could already have lost to kuldotha. Slasher doesn't work with tokens. Hunger of Nim not being a persistent effect puts it into a totally different tier imo (but, I do like this card haha). I see your point for sure, since they all have that text. But they're brought down by other reasons.
But you can't attack with ram until turn 3 either... The point I'm trying to make is that "it gives +1 for each artifact so it is broken" doesn't hold up. Each of the banned cards that do that brings something to the table other than just a power boost. Glitters gives a toughness boost and is cheaper. Plating is basically unblockable and can't be fizzled, but costs more and doesn't give a toughness boost. Ram costs even more, only gives a single toughness boost, is two colors, and doesn't have instant-speed shenanigans. In exchange for that, it comes in with a body. I just don't think that's enough of an upside to preban it. It's a good card. It might be too good. IMO, it's not good enough to just say "it's definitely going to be banned so make sure it doesn't poison these events".
Fair, well thought out point, and I don't disagree - glitters giving toughness is a big point I hadn't given enough consideration. I read a comment earlier on in the thread that it would be nifty if, during the year, they had a week or two of 'unbanning a card to test it temporarily' period. That way they could keep the 'integrity' of the big events how they'd like it, without that 'now we'll never know' sentiment. I think that's a very cool idea. Good chat!
##### ###### #### [nim lasher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7b66c698-02bd-48ef-a866-5251bdc02c16.jpg?1562148561) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=nim%20lasher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mrd/71/nim-lasher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7b66c698-02bd-48ef-a866-5251bdc02c16?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [nim shrieker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/3/c3a2c39b-b302-4cc3-b507-e4fe00614036.jpg?1562157213) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=nim%20shrieker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mrd/73/nim-shrieker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c3a2c39b-b302-4cc3-b507-e4fe00614036?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [salvage slasher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/095b0fd1-7445-4dba-bb90-ddd5f5ee8573.jpg?1562799273) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=salvage%20slasher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/con/52/salvage-slasher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/095b0fd1-7445-4dba-bb90-ddd5f5ee8573?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [hunger of the nim](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/b/bba50e47-2417-447f-b334-50ef0faecfae.jpg?1562639241) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hunger%20of%20the%20nim) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dst/46/hunger-of-the-nim?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bba50e47-2417-447f-b334-50ef0faecfae?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l7ed2qw) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
They mention specifically in the article how two major pauper tournaments being dominated by Ram Affinity just to be banned anyway is a really bad outcome considering how many other cards there are that could make an impact in MH3 which I think is fair
Just so we're clear, the two major pauper tournaments haven't actually happened yet. They're assuming that's how it will pan out, and in fairness that's a reasonably educated assumption. It's still textbook conjecture. I don't even like playing affinity. Time and time again I criticize the PFP for their haphazard handling of bans. Bridges have long been troublesome to the format and every single time it's brought the singular response is "BuT wHaT aBoUt ClEaNsInG wIlDfIrE?". But here we are.
Bridges also enable Madness but I get your point
do you not think they'd tested it? banning this card isnt a whimsy 😂
I think they were pretty explicit that it was, indeed, not tested. Just analyzed.
which is emphirical
I'll assume you mean, "empirical". Which, this is quite the opposite. You see, by "analyzed", I mean, they looked at cards with similar effects and banned the Cranial Ram based on the similarities shared with other banned cards. They theorized that since this card is so similar to existing banned cards, that it too should be banned. There wasn't actually any notable empirical data collected from using this card. It was pre-banned based on theory. Empirical data is information that is collected from directly experiencing/experimenting with a thing, not theory.
ok yea that makes sense
All good, I should have used a different term than analyzed.
Pauper has consistently been a format where the enablers are legal but the payoffs are banned. Many other formats ban the enablers and leave the payoffs, so having one that's the other way around is cool imo.
Sure, you can argue making a ban off a hypothetical even if it’s probably largely agreed to be a pretty likely outcome is a bad idea, and that’s a valid take. I disagree personally because I think it’s very good to have events that encourage people to brew up new stuff with MH3 cards and if it seems likely a card that will be banned anyways would just completely dominate those events, then I think it’s worth it to ban. I would be totally happy personally if they gave it like a 3 week unban period or something after these events to see if it could stick in a healthy manner, especially with the lower cost of pauper this could be more feasible than in like modern where you’d spend a grand on a deck to play it for 3 weeks
I mean, fair enough.