Thu, 18 January 2018
Lots of bans in Standard this week. But Rampaging Ferocidon? Rampaging Ferocidon Banned in StandardOf the four most recent bans, three are relatively understandable.
So these three make sense. You might not have bet on Ramunap Ruins... But it makes sense. Rampaging Ferocidon wasn't the best, or the second-best, or the eighth-best card in Mono-Red. In fact, many Mono-Red decks didn't even play four copies main deck! The Brilliance of Banning Rampaging FerocidonWhile counter-intuitive, the Rampaging Ferocidon ban is wonderful in a certain light. Forget for a moment about the Randy Buehler-era paradigm of banning only the broken cards. What about banning cards that make the format less fun? The problem with Rampaging Ferocidon is that it makes it very -- very -- difficult to sideboard against Red Decks. It's nice to be able to side in life gain cards and have them work, right? But even cards like Regal Caracal become liabilities... It stinks to trigger Rampaging Ferocidon but not be able to cash in on lifelink. And Rivals of Ixalan, Too!While most of this podcast is a discussion of the recent bans (plus a master class in game design by Patrick), we would be remiss to leave out some of the new cards that, you know, came out last week. What red creature might make a massive impact coming up? A flyer that pre-empts Glorybringer and might even compete with Hazoret, the Fervent? Check out "RRRR" to find out! This episode is sponsored by ZipRecruiter. Top Level Podcast listeners can post jobs to ZipRecruiter for FREE at Ziprecruiter.com/TopLevel |