The 'Metaban' Project - A rolling ban project for VTES Tournaments

AaronC wrote:

Why in the world would anyone suggest banning Immortal Grapple? I don't think anyone has, right?

Brian Moritz does - all the time. I'm starting to see his side of the story, too. Ask him!

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Apparently it's okay to just torpedo deck styles (here, Potence close range combat), because I can just call it "shaking up the meta", so I've no need to care about torpedo-ing this one.

Like I've said before, I agree with your actual counterarguments, but positioning anyone in favour of the idea with a motive of just looking to torpedo certain decks under the guise of 'shaking up the meta' is dishonest, and basically obnoxious. Just... just don't.

Shockwave wrote:

Like I've said before, I agree with your actual counterarguments, but positioning anyone in favour of the idea with a motive of just looking to torpedo certain decks under the guise of 'shaking up the meta' is dishonest, and basically obnoxious. Just... just don't.

It's also obnoxious if not dishonest to say a rolling ban is possible, but not propose any ban proposal, so you can show there is actually bans who both help deck diversity and do not have perverse side effect.

If the idea is to ban Dead Eye and Twisting the knife (or even Scouting Mission and Threats), it won't have much effect. If the idea is to ban Zillah, IG, 2nd trad, Magic of the Smith, and Deflection, then it will have unpleasant side effect. I don't really see what make you believe there is a middle ground of card which are key to current tier1 deck but do not torpedoes entire decks.

Shockwave wrote:

Like I've said before, I agree with your actual counterarguments, but positioning anyone in favour of the idea with a motive of just looking to torpedo certain decks under the guise of 'shaking up the meta' is dishonest, and basically obnoxious. Just... just don't.

Or, alternatively, it's saying exactly what kombainas told me it should be for.

kombainas wrote:

That is the very point - to think of alternatives, not abuse known tricks. If few archetypes get nerfed, is this such a bad thing?

He argues that the very point he is making is to nerf archetypes, and that that's okay because "changes like these do change metagame. And change is what is needed." (An unhelpful "something must be done! This is something! Do this!" position, alas.)

If accurately summarizing the position that kombainas was taking (and with which I was disagreeing - you can see all the quotes from him and the bit where I say "kombainas has told us", very subtle clues like that, you may have missed them) is dishonest and obnoxious, I have no idea what you're talking about anymore.

But, let's carry on: letting players vote to ban 20 cards that really get their goat, and you don't think that will destroy a variety of archetypes with a scattergun approach? Really? Really? Hand on your heart, you wouldn't expect Parity Shift to be in the top 5 cards of that poll? It's had many people ask for it to be banned over time. You also tell us:

Shockwave wrote:

If you want to do that, start a 'Metabans' Project - A rotating list of say.... 20 cards that are banned that 'season', maybe every six months or year, and change from year to year all in the name of keeping the game fresh.

Keeping the game fresh is pretty much the same as shaking up the meta.

So let's assume that you know - as you have conceded I have a point - that this will have seriously detrimental effects on a number of popular archetypes. (Precisely which ones would be up for grabs.) And you argue that this "all in the name of keeping the game fresh". So, err, your proposal is to keep the game fresh, and it does so by letting players take aim at a variety of disliked archetypes.

ban all brujah crypt cards. they smell bad and they're not invited to the jyhad this year.

Haze wrote:

ban all brujah crypt cards. they smell bad and they're not invited to the jyhad this year.

want to really shake things up, ban all crypt cards other than abominations, imbued, nagaraja, trujah, baali, gangrrl antitribu, and guruhi. Then we see all kinds of fun stuff. Want dominate? Play nagaraja or lots of skill cards.