Or I could just read the rulings on Animation Module itself.

9/20/2016 Abilities that trigger when counters are placed on a permanent trigger when a permanent enters the battlefield with counters and when a player puts counters on a permanent.

GS: you marked a 6 against mark777's deck, but I think it should be a 3. Clearly you win on the play (he never lands a Lotus), but he gets you to decking on the draw. He draws and plays Lotus on T1. You do what it is you do as he draws another lotus on T2, 3, 4, and then plays all three of them on T4 (paying 1 extra mana for each via the first lotus), then using that 9 mana, spends 5 of it to play Helm+tax, then at least 1 to activate helm and (because Leyline) your whole library goes poof. And you lose the next time you would draw. Your Factories don't deal lethal before that.

(technically he only needs 2 lotusses so he could pop on his T3 and win when you can't draw on your t3).

For the persecutor round does it have summoning sickness on turn 1?

It does not.

New Round: You Can't Win
Each player begins the game with an Abyssal Persecutor card on the battlefield. (It does not have summoning sickness on your first turn.)
Begins Friday, December 30th
Ends Wednesday, January 4th

Time to submit a safe deck and get a bunch of ties.

Why Rack and Shrieking Affliction are banned ?
Aren't aggro decks necessary for a healthy format ?

And the really weird thing.... why FOIL is banned ???

The alt round default ban list is broad enough that it catches cards that have historically been problematic in either upside alt rounds or downside alt rounds. In upside rounds, where people have extra resources available to them, any turn-0 disruption that isn't extremely narrow in scope tends to be a problem (Foil obviously is no problem at all without extra resources). And in rounds where the alt rule makes decks less powerful, rack/affliction have proven to be too dominant or format warping.

We've been doing this for years now. The list has been curated and adjusted based on many many iterations and player feedback.

Cards that get better because people start with a reduced hand size are always going to be a problem though, because they're designed and costed on the assumption everyone starts with 7 cards, not 3. When Lupine Prototype got printed it dominated 3cm until its ban, because it's so easy to make no-drawback. That's kinda the problem with Rack. A deck like mana-threat-rack demands a response or the threat wins unopposed, but any play to deal with the threat immediately puts the opponents hand under 3 cards.

Though until recently, mana-discard-rack was a devastating first turn play too, and the rules have recently changed to ban first turn hand disruption, so maybe Rack wouldn't be so bad with the new discard rule. It hasn't really been discussed or re-evaluated with the new discard rule.

Aggro still has plenty of place in this game and often wins, even without the undercosted-for-this-format rack and cousins.

I'm surprised Glacial Chasm hasn't made it onto the list yet.

I actually considered a deck full of Glacial Chasms last round. Why pay growing cume upkeep when you can just play a fresh one every turn and sac its predecessor?

It hasn't exactly been dominant - it does make choker.dec work, but Workshop being banned in vanilla keeps that from happening.

You guys put Ensnaring Bridge on the alt ban list for an obvious reason.

Choker.dek is basically the exact same deck. There are different pros and cons, but it's basically the same deck. It seems very odd to me that one is banned and the other isn't. Most people ban Glacial Chasm, but honestly banning Jinxed Choker would work too.

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Just to make it clear, since it seems like there is confusion, I am only talking about the alt rounds, not the vanilla rounds.

I can't speak to logic behind Ensnaring Bridge at all. I protested its addition to the ban list using the same argument you're presenting here - it being just like choker.

Workshop enables Trinisphere + Threat. I know people don't use this but that is a valid disruption strat.

Edit: It also enables Threat + Threat but people really don't use that one.

Trinisphere is a good point. I have to think Ensnaring Bridge was singled out because it was seen to actually succeed in alts while the others haven't been problems yet. But as stated, I was opposed to Ensnaring Bridge getting banned entirely.


Most threat+threat colorless decks can get by on City of Traitors. I think the main 4 culprits in colorless doublethreat: Steel Overseer and Lupine Prototype are effectively unaffected, Hangarback Walker and Chronomaton actually need mana without Workshop's restriction.

Probably bad decks but some interesting ones mights be:

Alloy Myr
Armory Automaton
Cathodion
Chief of the Foundry
Ferropede
Foundry Inspector
Phyrexian Digester
Serrated Biskelion
Steel Golem

etc. I'm sure there are more. Alloy Myr and Foundry Inspector would let you get a 4 drop into play at least. You could also use Alloy Myr to power Chronomaton although that is probably bad.

There's also the possibility for something like turn 2 Wurmcoil Engine.

I think Workshop offers the same sort of variety as Lotus. <- And has the same problem, which is that it's always banned because of the really busted crap it enables so people don't get to experiment with the less busted stuff. But the less busted techy stuff is there.

I'm back home now! So I can post things on a real computer instead of awkwardly doing everything on an iPad.

Vanilla Land Results
Rank|Name|Total Score|Round 1|Round 2|Round 3|Round 4
1|CommanderJim|8.50|4.33|4.17
2|POSValkir|7.50|4.00|3.50
3|Edacade|6.33|1.33|5.00
4|thatmarkguy|5.83|3.33|2.50
5|mark777|5.00|5.00|0.00
6|Zlehtnoba|4.83|2.33|2.50
7|Golgari_Spy|3.17|0.00|3.17

Consolation Prize: mark777 (Exploration or Hydra Broodmaster)
Pick one nonbasic card to ban from a deck that placed 1st this round.

Winner: Edacade
You may suggest a new alternate format to be added to next season's poll.

Get rid of Exploration.

One day left to submit "You Can't Win" decks! Can you win?

no, because can't clearly overrides can