so with the recent set of bans in CC, weve seen some power trimmed back from gravy, assassin, and a little just in case combo insurance against verdance
from the reception ive seen online, these bans are generally well received, and the biggest concern is whether this was the right way to balance gravy
this has led to wide speculation as to what decks are going to rise to prominence, and the standard assumption is that without as much backbreaking disruption from assassin there will be some aggro decks that take up the mantle (lol)
if gravy isnt as fast and consistent then ninja etc will be able to trample his allies and go face
if assassin isnt as disruptive and only threatens average damage then ninja etc will outrace it
as valda and other guardians get more refined post super slam, its possible - if not increasingly likely - that we see a deck with azaleas disruption and cost curve but with better blocking ability
instead of a deck full of 2 blocks and dominated red in the ledger for 14, you get dominated discounted + might tokened spinal crush for 14 backed by a deck full of 3 blocks that's pitching blues to do everything
this is not to say that guardian will be too powerful, but that we may see a shift in which archetype is the best at the 'disruption' part of the meta triangle
i want to take a brief moment to step back from these more specific deck analyses and think about higher level patterns
gravy gets substantial value from his consistency, enough to outvalue any other deck when played optimally, so tipple gets banned
bonds of agony is impossible to play around, so it gets banned
plume of evergrowth makes verdance inevitable (impossible to play around), so it gets banned
what's the common thread here?
...
these are all decks that transcend (lol) value by building a boardstate, trivially adding disruption into their attacks, or totally evading the opponent's defenses
interestingly, 2/3 of these also totally undermine the value of defense reactions - and if you count cards like just a nick, then assassin makes these kind of irrelevant as well by virtue of not being able to predict how much defensive power you need
but if we look at what decks might take their place, this looks like a looming disaster
kayo used to be the gold standard of aggro in the meta, now hes basically irrelevant in the face of more consistent and powerful aggro decks
4 value with go again is the floor for aggro cards - we have blaze headlong, oath of loyalty, and various art of dragons from cindra; mario makes all stealth cards 4 go again with on hits; slippy is slippy
against these decks, a paucity of defense reactions makes sense, perhaps the hand fixing from sink below is good for your gameplan but otherwise as they say, no blocks is mathematically correct, so why box yourself into cards that require you to block?
this state was created in part by oldhim, with crown of seeds and enough defensive power to block on hits and stop the aggro decks of his day, he soured an entire early generation of players against defenses
then we saw CYB decks establish a foothold, and while they werent dominant they had enough of an effect on the meta to cause players to say no more and the card was ultimately banned
but at the same time we look at defensive tools lately - shelter got printed and immediately hit $80, and is a staple in everything
conclusion? the meta is in an arms race between aggro and decks that threaten to fatigue out aggro
fatigue isnt a common wincon, but it does come up enough - and modern aggro decks are greedy enough - that theyre afraid of it
if we see bans for all of the generic 4-value defense reactions (except rise above) then this means defensive options must be deliberate e.x. block cards
this in turn allows for an adjustment of what power level aggro is allowed to have, and the return of other defensive options e.g. crown of seeds
players might look at cindra and araknii and think that defense reactions are necessary to combat the meta, but the exact opposite is true: the existence of such powerful defensive options, bundled into one non-conditional card, necessitated the level of high impact violence that we see in the meta today
-dbk
WHY ARE "CC" AND "CYB" THE ONLY CAPITALIZED WORDS??