Agreed...we should do this more often!

Things that beat Chancellor of the Annex:
- Uncounterable
- Split second
- 1 extra mana!
- Not playing spells

Things that beat Black Lotus:
- Counters
- Bounce
- Taxes

No idea why I posted this, but there it is.

To play around channex, people are going to play multiple threats or build in extra mana. Or not play around it.

To play around black lotus, people are going to play artifact blast, force of will, or chancellor of the annex. Or they won't play around it.

There's my meta prediction right there.

I don't think split second counters Channex. Triggered abilities still trigger.

You're right. I didn't even bother thinking about it.


Who's complaining?

I never complain .

The meta is going to be decided on how many people run hate, how many people try to play around it, and who just decides not to give a ****.

If no one plays around the hate, hate decks will be a lot better positioned. If people play around the hate a lot and not a lot of hate sees play, then decks that don't play around the hate will be better positioned. And finally if a crap load of hate decks see play (fat chance) then people who play around it will do better.

Realistically, not a lot of hate decks will see play, so it's really going to be decided by who tries to play around it. Either the strongest hate deck will come out on top this round, or the strongest deck that ignores the hate will come out on top this round. Because that's just what this playgroup plays like.

Mana taxes and Counterspells

Basically what you would call black lotus hate, at a wider level.

I'm starting to agree, but I think the problem is that better and better planeswalkers are being printed, and there's no hate for planeswalkers that's even close to what exists for creatures. Before, Lotus decks could be countered by Tabernacle and sometimes spot removal like StP. Now you have to play a dedicated deck like Artifact Blast which nobody wants to do.

Ban all cards

Ob was just a unique little beast this particular round. I looked at El, but I thought there would be a lot more Bridge/Tabbie/Energy Field stuff that would render the tokens useless. Guess she was just as good a call.

I was worried people were gonna ignore Razor and play Broodmother anyways too .

3cm meta discussion more like 3cm meta door whines

It's highly likely that everyone is going to go "oh people must play hate to counter lotus this round" and thus no one will. You know our meta right? It's so fun. Everyone doesn't want to play the hate deck.

weren't people saying a lot of people lost this roudn because everyone ran hate instead of channex

People lost this round because they tried to play around Channex and decks that don't are stronger.

The scores seem pretty flat for serious submissions if you discount City+Lotus...and Ajani+Squire, but I feel the real gripe in that situation is Squire, mainly cause it's not fair that Squire only works for whitey.

Even Elspeth and Kitties aren't exceedingly crushing the competition. Only Ob, and only cause this meta went the way it did.

^^ Eh, Mishra's Decks (at least chasm) did almost as well as ob nixilis too.

The problem with lotus, as I keep saying, is that only a very small number of people run the "no fun" hate deck, and no matter how much people complain about it no one has tried to outright beat it yet . Since lotus decks are almost inherently stronger than decks that play around channex...... well the lotus decks are ending up on top again and again.

Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath, Ajani Vengeant (twice), and Elspeth Tirel were in 4 of the 6 top decks. In 4th place was jinxed choker.dek and in 5th place (tied) was necrotic sliver.

Basically our format turned out to be really strong planeswalkers that run wild when no one plays lotus hate specifically, counterspells, mana taxes, or vindicate effects. As stated (except necrotic sliver), we basically have a huge lack of chancellor of the forge type decks designed to keep these in check. The two decks able to deal with this, the repeatable vindicate and the really strong racing deck, are what ended up being able to bring up the rear. One just flat out stops all damage while doing a **** load. The other just vindicates everything well enough to bring up the rear.

None of this is problematic or unhealthy. It's just the way our group plays. Blaming black lotus doesn't solve anything (although banning it technically does). The better tactic would be trying to convince more people to try to shut out lotus decks, instead of what keeps happening where every 2nd round to date it's gotten a free pass.

Well, I'll just keep playing Channex until something changes. That's my contribution.

That is so ass backwards it's making me go blind. If you're gonna put that much effort into it, why not just systematically ban all Walkers and good 6CMC Lotus targets.

Lotus, Frog, Will is a fun fair deck
Hello World's deck this round was clever and decent.
Lotus, Lotus, Grid Monitor is the exact same power level as Monitor was this round
Lotus, Lotus, Flameborn Viron is useless.
Lotus Bloom, Lotus Bloom, Barren Glory is still a turn 5 win and a "one-card deck"
City of Traitors, Island, Laboratory Maniac is still a turn 3 win and only slightly more vulnerable.

It's much harder for Lotus to become a dominate strategy when only a handful of Titan level targets are available each round, rather than have every other round be "Barren Glory wins" because someone wants to unban the ONE card you want to keep down.

I'm gonna do an experiment when I go home and replace all instances of Lotus in the last round with the appropriate storage land and see how it turns out. My assumption is "not much different" except Ajani beats the 5 CMC walkers and maybe Aaarrrgh's deck ticks up a bit.

Edit: To go into the first point in a bit more detail. People like Lotus, they will repeatedly try to unban it as long as good lotus targets exist. Ask yourself why Frost and Grave Titan are still on the ban list...no body cares about them, they care about speed. Lotus give you the speed and still has powerful targets. It will be a while before someone says "I really like Frost Titan, you know, as a person. I specifically want to win with a Frost Titan deck!"

You'll have less of an uphill battle banning a bunch of cards no one really cares specifically about than unbanning potentially format destroying cards which will become a back and forth of bans and unbans.

The speed of Lotus is why there will never NOT be a "broken" target for it. POS, your argument is like saying to ban everything that is good with island. It simply doesn't work that way. That doesn't automatically make Door right, but your argument is definitely the wrong approach, simply because it is not practically possible.

That being said, I think we have reached a point with black lotus where having grave titan unbanned would actually be healthier. I think Lotus is healthier in a format where the best option for it, which just obliterates planeswalkers, is a creature with clear counters people have learned to play around via things like tabernacle.