There are lots of decks that would beat it, if not for the once again crushing presence of Channex, because most of the decks that would beat it lose outright to Channex and people are averse to submitting decks that get 0 against a known threat.

Kodama of the North Tree isn't interesting because people (and Channex) counter the Lotus not the creature.

Also, the big pressure on Workshop decks is Channex. Workshop can't pay for Channex.

Channex doesn't do **** to workshop decks. At best, channex can 2-2 it. At worst, it 6-0's channex. That's the definition of a non-issue unless a stupidly high number of decks suddenly decide it's a good idea to run channex. The same with foil and force of will/snapback

Dual Channex stops tongs? lol...but what really beats Bridge this round is Walkers. Which seem to be the biggest threat this round IMHO. But again...few walkers compete with Shriek...or Lands...and none 6-0 discard...if you're concerned about that.

I have to agree with Door this round...which may be a first . Lots of powerful strategies seem feasible.

I'm more hesitant this round though...because I reversed the meta last round. I though everyone would go Land Destruction round 1 and then be wary of it round 2...WHOOPS!

It doesn't work that way. Both channex would waste their effect on the first card cast.

Right, but Bridge Tongs first cast would either be Bridge or Tongs since Workshop is a land. If they have one Channex, then they cast Tongs first and are ok. If they have two Channex, then they can't pay the required for Tongs.

I gotta be honest, the more I poke around, the more I like this round Door. I think Channex was a good call. It makes the round less predictable given the Titan and land destruction bans. There isn't much room for crazy innovation, but there is a lot of play for tier 2 decks to shine.

2-2ing a bunch of decks isn't a good way to win rounds.

The problem I've always seen with Lotus is the strength of Dual Lotus. I think this might be the optimum mix of "keep it in check". I like the diversity that lotus offers, but hate some of the power plays that come with it.

Workshop mana can only pay for artifacts. Unlike Thalia, Channex doesn't add to the cost of the spell, it is a conditional counter with a mana cost, which puts it outside of Workshop's restriction.

Lotus really doesn't offer that much power. It makes certain plays viable, but none of them are so difficult to plan for or hate out as to be called broken. LLF is beaten or tied by lots of decks, decks that are viable on their own merit. Plus it allows a couple decks that are not viable on their own merit, but become viable by virtue of hating Lotus. Plus there is literally no deck that is made inherently unviable just because Lotus exists. In general, what we should be looking for when judging the power level of a card is how it affects the format: positively, by creating more options and thus making the meta harder to solve, or negatively by limiting options and making the meta easier to solve. Lotus does the former. There are numerous ways to beat it, it directly creates the viability of it's own decks, indirectly creates the viability of anti-lotus decks, and minimally creates the viability of anti-anti-lotus decks, and it does not make any decks unviable. It is, from this perspective, only good for the format. Of course there are other factors that complicate this type of analysis, so Lotus is not *strictly* good for the format, but it is certainly not the boogeyman.



....I can't sleep.

The problem with lotus and channex is not the cards themselves. It's the psychological (or lack of) effect they have on the game.

There seems to be this strong aversion in our play group to playing the chancellor of the forge deck. There seems to be this expectation that everyone is going to play around it so playing it is really really bad for you. Once someone like Razorborne realizes this, well.......... grave titan wins two rounds in a row. A side effect is that extreme predatory effects like gut shot that prey off of you trying to play around the deck DO become viable, because everyone tries to play around channex but no one actually wants to run it because everyone knows people will play around it. The same with artifact blast and so on. A lot of people in our play group would rather NOT play that deck, so the things it hates on become artificially stronger.

Edit: Unless I point all this out and then say I'm playing the jinxed choker deck. Then all of a sudden people run artifact blast, force of will, and chancellor of the annex out the ying yang because there's some psychological value to definitely knowing you will beat that one person's deck.

What you just described is not related to Lotus at all, it's just yomi layers. We don't have an aversion to Channex, we just mispredicted the metagame. We shouldn't blame our bad meta calls on cards that aren't to blame.

It's entirely related to lotus, because that is one of the cards people make REPEATED and THE SAME assumptions about. "It's not lotus's fault" would be more appropriate.

^^ I'm simply subtly trying to get people to notice this trend.

But the metagame arose from people's aversion to play Channex. Most people don't want to play the boring killjoy deck. They want to try to catch people by surprise, and you don't catch people by surprise by playing the boogeyman everyone's expecting, even if it would have crush the decks that went on to win the round (that people played because they correctly predicted that few people would want to play the boring killjoy decks).

You're getting way too deep in ascribing individual reasoning to the yomi layers.

1) While I'm sure at least one person felt that way, we can't just assume that it's the universal reasoning. Some people metagame to win and chose not to play Channex because they felt it wouldn't be well-positioned.

2) If we do assume it's the universal reasoning, you don't get to simultaneously admit you weren't willing to play what you thought was the winning deck, and also cry foul from the deck that actually did win. You knew it was an option, you knew exactly how to beat it, and you state that you chose not to beat it for non-meta reasons.

I don't remember crying foul.

I didn't say that you had. I'm simply stating that the reasoning you give, which is similar to previous arguments, does not support any declaration that Lotus is format-warping.

People are format warping. For a while there was a definitive trend that Mark just outed...people didn't like to play control. You could almost bank on 50%+ of the submitted decks to be non-control oriented. That meta is prime picking for a competitive lotus deck.

It's the exact same on the other end. If the people playing trend towards control, other decks are primed for position.

3CM seems unique in that no one card can be format defining...although a certain set of bans (or a particular downside) can lead to the perception of a warped format.

For instance...this rounds combination of available and banned cards makes creatures definitively weak in a meta trending more towards control. Between Channex making Artifactblast.dec more versatile than usual and the availability of powerful decks like Energy Field/Storage land, Bridge, and Tabernacle Lands...creatures don't seem very well positioned at all.

It doesn't mean creatures can't place first...just that the availability of power naturally slights them.

Edit: Also, I'm drunk.

Quoted this because it's awesome.



Related, I'm mostly just tossing out word salad because I'm bored. We're so awesome together, POSValkir.