Muramasa's Banlist Thought's

[muramasaz]

Hello fellow Duelysts,

since there have been talks how to keep tournament play fresh and exciting i wanted to share some thoughts with you that i had on my stream the other day.

The topic in question is a TOURNAMENT ONLY ban list. Since i am not a huge fan of banning cards myself and am a big fan of having metas evolve and shift i wanted to ban as few cards as possible.

As a final disclaimer these picks are just my personal choice and my arguments aren‘t the absolute.

If you think otherwhise or if you feel the need to add to this topic you are very welcome to do so.

Also keep in mind to err is human.

Ban Pick Number 1: RAE

This Battlepet has been specifically picked for its interaction with Cataclysmic Fault.

The removal of RAE forces Vetruvian to adapt to a missing 0 drop since they have no in faction 1 drop without having any board. Obviously there are still ways to discount minions with Golem Metallurgist and Reassemble but these plays dont come without spending and risking additional ressources. The overall speed and consistency would get bumped back to get enough breathing room to pressure those style of Decks.

Ban Pick Number 2: Tectonic Spikes

Tectonic Spikes and Decimus have been the issue of many heated debates in the past.

My choice landed on Tectonic Spikes for its overall accessibility for so many decks and its sheer versatility in all of them. The card provides the missing link in the famous Flash Reincarnation, Decimus, Tectonic Spikes combo play and gets played in Vaath and Ragnora aswell for its sheer draw power and its abillity to pressure your opponents life total.

The 3 damage to your own general and the 3 cards drawn for your opponent as a supposed downside get almost muted/negated by the fact that you decide when the card is played to optimize its effect. A quick note on Decimus. The card without Tectonic spikes takes up a similar role to Faie‘s Bloodbound Mentor strategy and wouldn‘t be able to generate huge burst plays that would end the game to fast. The overall minion on its own is rather average in stats/effect for its costs.

Ban Pick Number 3: Cryptographer

Cryptographer has been present in every meta since its debut. Having early access to your BBS or keeping a chain of BBS going can really change the pace of a game. Its synergy with Blood Surge cards, for example with Drogon or Bloodbound Mentor, is also a strong synergy/combo play that can easiely get out of hand very quickly. Removing the card would result into a more „paced“ game experience since there would be no option to „break“ the BBS cycle from its natural progression and accessibility. The card itself makes only for a one sideded experience and over simplifys certain aspects of the game.

Ban Pick Number 4: Ragnora the Relentless

This choice was a hard one to make since it removes 1 General from a Faction which seems from an outside standpoint not „balanced“ or could invoke the thought of a certain bias. I assure you i have neither the bias against magmar nor the intent to make the Lizards fall on their back.

The choice of banning Ragnora from competitive play revolves around that the BBS the General has (Propagate Rage) is just to strong for the current cardpool it has access to.
The overall value this BBS provides is to much to handle for many decks and is not easy to answer without having to waste ressources which smothers your abillity to play a active game in order to win.
Banning the General isnt an easy choice to make since it removes a certain portion of the factions overall powerlevel but since we have seen in the last 6 month how powerful Ragnora and his Rippers are, i feel very confident to see the General excluded from competitive play.

Closing words:

I am very proud of every member of this community who is still playing Duelyst and the people who put in time and effort to make the Duelysts community one of the best communitys in gaming.

If you feel that certain cards have been missing from this list or want to know why certain factions werent touched in particular feel free to ask in the comments or write me a DM.

You are all very welcome to talk to me about all of this of the Duelyst Official Discord or in one of my Streams on Twitch (www.twitch.tv/muramasalp).

I hope these thoughts have been of some help to you and have given you some insight in my thought process when it comes to competitive play.

Thank you for reading.

Muramasa

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Changelog 08.02.2019 2:50 AM: Grammar and Typos

[deathsadvocate]

My biggest concerns with most other folks ban lists is they tend to only hit some of the meta issues rather then all at once. While yes the less cards we ban the better, we still need to account for all the current issues or we risk exasperating them.

If you simply remove Rag and Rae all you have done is now exasperate the wanderer/ziran issue ten fold as now they have even fewer checks and balances. You now are also removing Deci/Spikes (something I would love to see gone but not without the other problems also addressed) and with Kha/Fault still being around Vaath/Artifacts, which are another natural check and balance, still do not have room to breathe. And Deci/Spikes is not on the meta level of the top four, but is more akin to the problem we see with Shidai Arcanyst something that should also be looked at if you are going to go after more then the top four.

I really ultimately do not care what the bans are, whats important though is that ALL of Wanderer, Ziran, Kha/Fault, and Egg Rag get addressed. And then optionally, but only after the main four are addressed, a couple of the other fringe cases like Deci/Spikes, Arcanyst, and Spellhai variants.

Going after only some of them could quite possibly be even worse then going after none of them.

(Small sidenote, I love that the idea is taking off. But not quite sure why it is splintering into separate threads.)