I agree with Demnchi...and appreciate the detailed post, great points.

BP Shadow Mann vs A1 Haunty

Perfect example of why more ways to deal with attachments is needed. Solo Maj can crush a hero now with loads of attachments that deal direct damage. Please fix SoE and Vermin to work on summon. In the meantime, I guess I'll only be using direct damage heroes...hello zal and damn mages, if I even play...might be time for a break until things get balanced a little more. I get irritated more by all the attachment crap than I ever did by the banned cards on this list.

Originally Posted by Shadow Mann

BP Shadow Mann vs A1 Haunty

Perfect example of why more ways to deal with attachments is needed. Solo Maj can crush a hero now with loads of attachments that deal direct damage.

I assume you had a lot of allies stuck on the board.

I think this is perfect example of where you could change your deck in light of new cards and new meta! I guess you have been lucky to cope without ways to remove "stuck" allies in the past.

There's at least 4 cards available to Garth now that can bounce them for you, sending Subdue and Consuming Fear straight to the graveyard, and allowing you to replay them for their on-summon abilities too.

Soul Reaper... Just change it to +1 life only per ally..and 4cc...and when used, SR is exiled from game

Originally Posted by Bluejet24

Soul Reaper... Just change it to +1 life only per ally..and 4cc...and when used, SR is exiled from game

This would mean they are willing to change the older cards...the ban list seems like their preferred option to try first. I'm not sure they really want to start modifying the older sets.

If banning these cards leads to shorter matches, then I guess you achieved your goal of shortening the matches but that may be a pyrrhic victory for wulven studios (or whoever controls this game) and not a victory at all for the players or for the game. I wonder if, in this case, player frustrations manifested with statements such as "stalling games are the worst kind of games" but actually depend more on the probability that one player is able to dominate their foe throughout the match. Stalling is a form of domination -- make the other player wait and feel powerless. But there exist so many other forms of domination and humiliation in this game even after you remove these 5 cards, so I doubt you've solved the real problem. For example, you can take away armor of ages, but there are still plenty of scenarios in this game that feel unfair and lead to one player dominating the other throughout the match, and then the match was unfulfilling for the loser.

I see the problem as being something like, shadow era matches are too one-dimensional: you either win or lose (yes, draw is possible but statistically hardly ever happens).

I'm not here to rant though, I love this game. I play almost every day. Not to win, just for the chaos and bizarre strategies to be truthful.

so here's my analogy/idea to shadow era's match gameplay frustrations: golf!

Personally, I'm not an advocate of the sport of golf, but I admire golf's multi-faceted approach (pun intended) to the humiliation problem, which include: "handicap" (players of unequal talent compete equally based on statistics), "re-match" (lose one hole, then start over on the next hole against the same opponent), "pace of play", "front 9/back 9", "skins", etc, etc.

there are a long list of rules in golf designed to ease the frustration of one player dominating another. It would be easy to offer a handicap (increased health or more frequent crystal energy?) , or a more elaborate scoring system, such as points for kills, or some type of reward so that, as in golf, there is a winner and a loser, but the loser doesn't feel humiliated because the loser "won something".

Think about a player who logs in, builds a deck, learns the basics....then gets their ass kicked by thoughtripper+fagan, or their opponent summons 2-3 leviathins in one turn, or gravebone puts forgotten horror into play despite having 4 resources, or tidal wave disappears all your allies, or nova, or embers, or hidden, or soul reaper, or transmog, or most of the Location cards, or any of the other hundred of humiliating "surprise I just kicked your ass via loophole xyz ha ha" card combinations in this game.

I'd rather have a point-scoring system that is designed to reward winners AND losers rather than what we have now often in many matches: a one-dimensional beat-down.

to sum up (what did we learn?):

* ban list does little to improve game play
* handicaps even the playing field (based on match play score, experience, deck strength, etc)
* re-match offers a second (or third or fourth) chance
* pace of play prevents slow games
* alternate point-scoring systems acknowledge good match play regardless of win or defeat, ie points for dealing damage, points for defeating any card with casting cost 3 resources or above (it should be a major achievement to kill Vull before he kills you, am I right?)
* I hope banned cards get reborn
* the idea of permanence. it makes little logical sense why some cards are permanent and others are used up over time, and others are single-use.
* cards that statistically give advantage or circumvent "natural" game play (high percentage win cards or so-called "kill cards") should require an equal/opposing penalty of some kind

love this game! love what you guys do! for your health!

Hi, Dr Steve Brule. You make some great points and I like your style of writing, but you've put too much emphasis on thinking we banned these cards because they win. The fact is that they are miserable to face even when you can beat those decks, and they are most prevalent in average ratings where players are the same approximate skill but one had chosen to use misery-inducing cards and the other hasn't (so handicap is irrelevant and no one is really dominating the other, but one is being aloof and the other wishing to have interactive match).

Speaking of interactive, I have to say I do like the golf analogy - not only because it's a pretty boring sport IMO but also because it's essentially a solo game where each player can focus on their own plays and ignore the opponent, which is a lot like when a player uses some of the above cards to ignore their opponent and play in non-interactive fashion.


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Finaly something is being done about the 30-40 minutes boring games that made me stop playing SE. No, stalling has never been overpowered, I probably have won more games against it then lost against it, but every single game against stalling decks made me want to close the app and just never open it again.. It's just not fun (for me, everyone has diferent conceptions of fun). I agree with the cards on this list, although possible some more need to be added to it in the future.

But I love the idea of having a ban list in every season, exactly to be able to balance out older cards that might start to be game breaking (not in balance, but in fun to play).

Originally Posted by Maldazar

But I love the idea of having a ban list in every season, exactly to be able to balance out older cards that might start to be game breaking (not in balance, but in fun to play).

Hi, welcome back. I appreciate there's some support for the idea of a rotating ban list to shake things up regularly, but I think at this stage we should confirm it's not one we'd consider any time soon. It just seems like a band aid used in other games to make up for lack of balance and variety. It's something to keep in the back pocket if we need it though!

But it's our hope we can continue with keeping all cards legal in Rated Multiplayer apart from the ones selected here for being "not in the spirit of the TCG we want to be making". I think you are right there are a few more cards that are likely offenders on that which could also get them onto the trial Ban List, such as Robes of Mending.

Interesting move. You've essentially killed off two (or three if you count Prax and Zaladar separately) of the most powerful decks in the game. I think it's probably for the best - I hated playing them and there really is no good counter to either one - Gwen can almost always play more bows than you've got item destruction, and even if you can circumvent ITF with groundshift you've got to attack her with allies with >4 health or she'll just heal off of you if she's got a soul seeker. Prax and Zaladar being able to get up to full health with a 3cc card and draw card(s)/abilities that they'd be playing anyways (which throw stuff into the graveyard for soul reaper to use) is nuts. Couple it with energy discharge/that one location that exiles allies, AoA to soak up damage, and mimic in case soul reaper is discardeed and it's just bonkers how few weaknesses the resulting deck has. Plus Prax's version is a mill deck and Zaladar basically kills you slowly with his ability, so games against them take a long time, and you're almost guaranteed to lose in a lot of cases. Not much fun.

I'm not sure how I feel about the other two bans. Crescendo seems to be almost exclusively used in Millstalker decks, which have their weaknesses (Anarchic Looting, cards which resist the damage ping from evil ascendant plus a way to destroy crescendo, a well-timed groundshift). Millstalker is definitely not on the same level as the decks above. Lay low Lance isn't either, although it seems to have more good matchups than Millstalker and is annoying to face if you can't counter lay low. However, I've found Lance tends to take a decent amount of damage early in the game and ignore your allies late-game, meaning you can potentially play groundshift to kill him. Maybe the deck is bad because if you're not running a board wipe [not a hard counter but helpful since Lance has limited allies], focused prayer, hasted Eris, groundshift, or one of the two new epics you're pretty much screwed, but then again that's a decent list of weaknesses and the last two options aren't even class specific.

Lastly I'm a little surprised to see that stall Vess wasn't addressed as I've seen lots of complaints about that deck too. Maybe the Yari Marksmen nerf was enough to level the playing field vs ally decks? TBH I haven't played since that took effect so I don't know for sure.

Originally Posted by Sylnox

Maybe the Yari Marksmen nerf was enough to level the playing field vs ally decks? TBH I haven't played since that took effect so I don't know for sure.

I think yari marksmen is stronger now than before.

Originally Posted by Shadow Mann

I think yari marksmen is stronger now than before.

I totally agree -now instead of waiting for a 3rd ally to snipe something down, you just have to wait for two and that's already 3 damage. I if you have an ally on board well its almost guaranteed you will take out whatever you are sniping. Also, the reasoning for the "nerf" doesn't make sense. It was said that his power wasn't warrior-esque since he wasn't using combat to take down the enemy. Well...he's a marksman! It's in the name! Plus, he's still doing the same thing just not killing the creature outright.

Originally Posted by FinnTheConqueror

I totally agree -now instead of waiting for a 3rd ally to snipe something down, you just have to wait for two and that's already 3 damage. I if you have an ally on board well its almost guaranteed you will take out whatever you are sniping. Also, the reasoning for the "nerf" doesn't make sense. It was said that his power wasn't warrior-esque since he wasn't using combat to take down the enemy. Well...he's a marksman! It's in the name! Plus, he's still doing the same thing just not killing the creature outright.

And now he's also much harder to kill himself, with 4 health

I like the changes to Yari Marksman. Makes the ally much more versatile and Yari tribal decks more interesting.

However I don't think enough has been done to address Stall Vess. The change to Yari marksman has done little to affect the playstyle. Need to stop attachments from being recycled or lythite coating banned.

Originally Posted by deathintheflesh

Does this include meltdown?

No. MD, unranked and single player campaign matches are excluded for now.

I'm bumping this thread to see how people feel about the Ban List after we've had more than three months of it in use.

As far as we know, it's been a positive thing for the gameplay environment, so we are retaining the Ban List for Rated Multiplayer in v3.61.

The bans are mostly fine. The reaper ban has killed 2 very competitive decks and really forced the elemental class into aggro. This is fine if there are cards coming to help them get back into control and mid range. There are several more cards you should consider adding but I'm not sure if that is an option

Elemental class was balanced around the fact that they have Soul Reaper - that's why Antimatter is the way it is. If Soul Reaper is indeed gone, they will need many new control tools as well as a new draw engine. The tools they have now are centered around the fact that they can afford the loss of tempo and slow start because Soul Reaper will be used later. With that no longer the case, a heavy aggro build is the only way to play the Elemental class right now.

I'm fine with banning Armor of Ages - its only purpose was to stall - but they can't seem to afford losing Soul Reaper without negating most of the cards that were designed around it.

Hi all! I think we have had long enough to learn enough from this Temporary Ban List. It's clear allowing up to 4 copies of these in decks on Rated Multiplayer did not create a nice environment and we are much better off overall without them appearing at all. But, could things be even better if we allow 1 copy of them rather than none at all? I say "Let's find out!"

I propose we consider making a Temporary RESTRICTED List for Rated Multiplayer with these same cards on it. Each of these cards currently limited to 0 copies in your Rated Multiplayer deck could now appear once in your deck. Implementing it will take about 5 minutes and communicating it would not take much longer. What do you think?