LSV: "It's not a good look for coverage when someone has a mountain with nexus of fate sharpied on" thankfully WOTC slashed all video coverage so that's not an issue anymore!
@@Furavara WotC hasn't been doing video coverage for GPs at all this year and has yet to announce if there will be any video coverage for them in the future.
@@Furavara they have announced that for GPs going forward they are not doing any coverage beyond text coverage for some of the top8. no more video setups at GPs or streaming. They said there might be exceptions but it will be mostly text coverage and not every round. It's been blowing up on reddit the past few weeks.
L1 judge here. Its not that it’s a foil in general that it wouldn’t be allowed in competitive tournament play. For a lot of people (since Nexus is only available in foil) it would be the only foils in their deck, and if you’re smart enough you can see where they are in your deck and change the order accordingly, thus possibly leading to cheating. If you had a lot more foils in your deck (say half) then there wouldn’t be an issue, as long as it’s not specific cards that are foil to give the player an edge during shuffling
@@Kayametra As both a mtg judge and a pokemon player, some of the most powerful, specific cards are only available in foil and it is never a problem, and printed from wizards. They know that pokemon players will straight up quit, so they can't make bad foils. Its horseshit that they short magic players that quality.
@@Kayametra wotc should not be able to punish players for their own shitty mistakes. They should print a limited run of non foils and give them to players who come to the gp with that deck. I don't care that it will cost them money. they made the mistake they should pay for it, or they could finally fix their fucking foiling process so our card we pay a shit ton of money for don't go to shit as soon as we get them.
My first time against a Nexus combo deck was even before the release of wilderness reclamation and went something like this: my opponent ran out something like a Vraska on turn 6 or something like that, I countered it; at a cetain point they assembled the combo, went through their entire deck until it was only three nexus of fate left (one was exiled by my thief of sanity), Teferi emblem on the field, my board exiled; I had no way to win, but neither did they, as we both knew perfectly since we had seen their entire deck; they couldn't even mill me out, since they constantly had to cast Nexus to prevent themselves from decking; I had nothing better to do and was feeling pretty pissed at my opponent, so I decided to hold my ground as long as possible; in the end, opponent conceded, I felt great about it. This is kind of messed up if you think about it, including the part about feeling happy that my opponent was more bored by their deck than I was
the problem is that you don't even have to cast nexus not to deck, you can simply discard it to hand size to reshuffle it back without resolving it, and let your opponent mill himself. So unless your oppo lacked enough cards in hand to do it, he might have just thrown that game (not that I feel sorry for him, the card is an abomination).
@@36424567254 they didn't have enough cards in hand, almost none, that's why. Probably didn't know how to properly play the deck and got carried away thinking that they would win if they just played every single card in the deck
I hate that the creators of the game let this even be a thing. At no point should this ever have to be an issue, this card shouldn't exist in this form
Francesco Gulisano I got into a similar situation. He started giving me turns (in the hope that I would mill- I can’t remember how he was avoiding milling himself) but I had enough 1 drops that I could play a land and a one drop and hit him and would eventually win so he conceded. Ah wait of course- he was putting teferi back in to avoid decking himself
Absolutely agree, ban nexus, full stop. There is another point you two should have discussed. It's a HORRIBLE idea to split the rules of Arena and paper.
The 'split arena and paper' thing they kind of covered with the BO1/BO3 thing, as Arena is both the only place where BO1 matters and is now a place where BO3 matters.
tnx, i knew there would be somebody with the clear logical opinion on this, if you ban it ban it everywhere. Guess whether it should be banned, 'meh', but if it's ban worthy then do not split the rules !! ps. buy a box promo's should just be cool art of a card in the set, not this 'problems will rise' type of promo's, because either it's a horrible card and thus not worth it to buy a box for, or it's this great card and all hell breaks loose. AKA. the whole thing is actually 'just a bad idea'
Content aside, I really enjoyed the format of this video, and I felt that the conversation flowed naturally between the two speakers and was a great way to convey their arguments. I hope there are more videos in this style in the future!
Luis Scott-Vargas Totally agree that this was an enjoyable format to watch and I’m happy to read that there will be more coming in the future! Hope it will continue to be with you and Matt, you two seem to have a nice chemistry with these types of conversations!
VenaCava ever since it was banned in best of 1, all my B03 matches have been against nexus. I’m talking 25 games in a row. Most of them are just playing it to have in their deck.
I think the issue with banning Nexus from WotCs side is that it is a box promo only card. But we all knew from the beginning that this kind of promo cards would create a problem sooner or later.
@@TitaniumDragon Being a box topper makes it bigger problem. Wotc is less likely to ban it because the box topper is supposed to be a selling feature of the box.
It may have been a selling point for a box, but it isn't anymore. It's not like there are still nexus of fates floating around out there in boxes. It's strictly secondary market now. They aren't making any more money off of it. If anything banning it might switch up the meta in a way that requires more new cards to be used and drives sales. Besides they can tote the whole "look we took appropriate action against nexus of fate" thing in order to justify even more broken box toppers to drive future sales.
AlmostSkillfull That makes no sense. If they ban a box topper, wizards is telling people not to bother preordering for special cards because you won’t be allowed to use them. It’s not about the secondary market. It’s about the future consumer confidence. Banning standard cards is always a bad look.
I think it's a waste of space to HAVE to carry that. I would love a world where jank decks work. Nexus is a war of attrition. A medieval siege on your time. Maybe a balance will come in next set? If not, ban it in standard.
I run a Temur Nexus deck (shoot me) and have won through Unmoored Ego more than once. Opponent hit me with an oops and felt pretty bad when I killed them with Explosion for 24 off three Wilderness Reclamation in the late game. I agree with the guys that Nexus should be banned, even as a player of it, but I feel like the Temur build is slightly less toxic than the Bant one with Teferi; I can usually win after only a handfull of Nexus plays using my X cost burn spells rather than forcing my opponent to suffer for like 10 minutes.
Even better is when you have someone playing nexus with no win condition, so you ride it out until they make a mistake and you get a turn. Then they quit from embarassment.
If a card is disproportionately not played in physical magic despite being powerful simply because it requires too many slow, repetitive game actions (In this game, shuffling) and is thus only really playable in digital where those actions are automated that's probably a good indication that the card is terribly designed.
There are several decks that match this description but instead are unplayable on digital platforms where they are relatively straightforward in paper. I don't believe this is particularly indicative of anything.
Did you forget that only so many copies were printed in paper and they cost $30 a pop? It’s more accessible online because there’s a physical amount of copies irl
@@khub5660 Teferi is almost twice as expensive as Nexus and yet Esper control which runs 4 copies doesn't run into the same digital vs paper representation disparity. Frankly the supply issue with nexus is overstated, if the problem actually was that people literally couldn't get their hands on them then the price would be far higher than it is.
Goldenhand The Just Teferi has a high price tag because it gets played in eternal formats. Nexus of Fate has a legitimate X amount of them printed because they were buy-a-box promos. So for every box printed, there is 1 Nexus meanwhile with other mythics, the proportion is not the same as that and is higher. Nexus promotes an unhealthy way to play and since every other eggs style deck got banned, WotC should follow suit and ban that too for the same reasons that KCI and second sunrise were banned
@@khub5660 Teferi was played slightly in Legacy. He barely sees play anymore. He was hyped, but the Modern and Standard demand is what drives his price.
Extra turns should not be: Instant speed, recursive. This breaks both. And with the amount of instant draw since a few years ago, this has become ridiculous, to the point I have considered leaving.
In the case of chance for glory, it's a 3cmc outside the typical extra turn colour, and it has the typical red gambling component. The problem with NoF is that it has very low risk for a very high reward, and with very few effective counters.
I will say that I did enjoy the discussion about Nexus, I feel that It could have elaborated more on the topic of skewing a metagame and running cards to specifically beat nexus. The re-shuffle clause of nexus applies regardless of being countered/discarded or being cast, which in itself makes exiling the card the only truly efficient way to deal with it. Discard can't stop it from being topdecked and a player can only run so many counterspells, which essentially slow the deck playing them down as well. It feels like contributing to the nexus decks plans in some regards, since they are trying to buy time to assemble their winning board state. Using counters on nexus, leaves you open to losing to teferi and vice-versa. I think many players understand how quickly an uncontested teferi can win a game. As far as it being cast and resolving, there is the constant shuffling in paper, which wizards is trying to avoid for coverage/play experience reasons. And while this doesn't apply to online play, the arena looping problem is well known and not the most simple to solve outside of an outright ban. Creating seperate ban lists for bo1 and bo3 feels wierd and makes an already complex game, more complex. How would a playerbase that will constantly needs more wildcards feel when they know the have to play a certain format to use a card they had to spend hard earned wildcards on. One of the greatest aspects about magic is that you can play the game however you want and with whichever colors you want.. And while there are decks like u/w which can apply pressure and have counters for backup, it goes back to having a good, well rounded play experience for the majority of players. At its heart, magic is a game and should always be remembered as such. Win/loss record shouldn't need to be taken into account on what a player has to play. And while yes, winning is certainly more fun than losing, being able to play a close game on your own terms is a much more rewarding experience. To wrap this comment/rant up, I feel as a ban on nexus would be the most logical answer to these issues, since it brings many different issues in both paper and online that no other card in the format currently does.
Nexus needs that big ol' Banhammer to come down on it's head. It's not fun to play, not fun to play against, and every game against it is miserable. I'd rather have Smuggler's Copter or Rampaging Ferocidon be in Standard than have this thing run amok in Standard any longer. I'd also be fine with Teferi being banned, but Nexus is the heart of the problem. Plain and simple, when a card say's "Your opponent can't play the game." It doesn't belong in Standard.
All of this requires a lot of additional technology. I’d rather the arena team focus on implementing new features than implementing some tech to just support nexus of fate.
actually this would be laughably simple to implement. That's a bit of functionality a first year software developer could put together in a day on the back end. That said, I agree that they shouldn't put any time into supporting nexus of fate... they should just ban it. But this functionality could be used for other reasons than to punish people taking infinite turns
Temporal Mastery is the first one to have the Exile text on it, and Nexus is the first to not have it attached since. The closest we have to a Nexus from past Standard sets would be Beacon of Tomorrow or Walk the Aeons.
I'm fine with a full ban for the reasons described here, including experience playing against opps out of win cons and just looping quite a few times on arena and it being insanely frustrating, but I think a simpler (depending on your perspective) solution is just the implementation of a more traditional timer like in chess or mtgo, because that kind of change is widely applicable to other aspects of the game as well (like running out of time in one turn playing TYS or something)
I think one of the main reasons for it's banning in paper still is the fact it was a box topper, and as such created such a warped way to acquire it. That and all being foiled, of course as discussed in the video.
I would be fine if nexus of fate didn't shuffle back in the deck! That's the stupid part of the card. It doesn't require any clever combo or anything like that, it's just draw cards and take infinite turns.
15:00 ... If Nexus of Fate cost three or four mana and exiled itself instead of shuffling it into your deck, then we wouldn't be talking about banning it. It would be a four of in every blue deck in standard... and possibly modern as well, but we wouldn't be talking about banning it.
I think the shuffle idea was to keep it from getting gearhulked back. But yeah I think they should just axe the card, it pushes the gameplay patterns towards the 2 extremes pretty hard and as said play patterns with it are not fun.
Making it exile also covered that though; 3UU (you/target player) takes an extra turn after this one, exile Nexus of Fate is a very good but not busted time warp that isn't Gearhulkable.
wotc clearly has the intention of making it a combo card. if they just want to avoid gearhulk interaction, they would just exile the card instead of shuffling it back into library
Nexus is cancer on arena. I used to play arena everyday till about 5-10 wins. Now I play once every few days do a quest or two and log out. Nexus is the sole reason for my loss of interest. I'll instantly concede against Nexus decks. I don't want to risk being stuck in a 2 hour long game again.
How’s this one: If a player performs a set of actions repeatedly at least three times, such that: a) No cards that are “new”, or previously unseen (that is, cards that haven’t been in either hand nor in play before) are drawn; I’m specificslly referring to those cards, revealed, explored, scried or surveiled cards would still be considered “new” b) No changes to the board are made (number of permanents; their tapped status; mana count in either pool) ...that player receives a loss for failing to advance the gamestate. Apply this rule as a subset of the loop-handling guidelines for digital versions of Magic specifically. Why? Because repeated actions (loops) can be detected (see mathematical case of infinitely non-repeating sequences), there’s enough computational power for it (game can handle hundreds of tokens with triggered effects, while sending them to GPU to draw), and basic loop rules (player explains loop, names a number, does it that many times, then proceeds to different actions or loses) are much less friendly for a digital representation, though functionally act the same. Bam. Nexus solved. Future infinite comboes are separated from infinite stalls. Paper, where Nexus is not much more of a problem than regular infinites, is unaffected. Everyone wins.
His example on Thief of Sanity was on point. Edit: as for the question at the end, yes, they should ban Nexus (if not Nexus, Wilderness Reclamation should go - this would be my personal pick for the ban tbh).
Hey CFB. Thanks for listening to the feedback on the KCI video. I think we all appreciate hearing pros opinions on these issues. Last week on Pro Points podcast Sam Black, Mike, and PVDDR, all think the card should be emergency banned. Seems about right to me and the rest of the community it appears.
Time Stretch absolutely does not exile itself. The first FNM I ever won was with a janky deck built around taking all the turns by Time Stretching, shuffling it in with Primal Command, and drawing more with Mind Spring with only 2 win cons.
In light of the recent Nexus of Fate ban, I would like to know your take on the Teferi loop with no win condition? I recently played a ranked game (best of 1) against a player whom i had apparently removed all available win conditions against. he had the Teferi emblem "whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls" which resulted in clearing my entire board but i still had 20+ cards left in my deck and a full hand(with multiple ways of killing my opponent). He, on the other hand was left with 0 cards left in his deck and continued playing by -3 Teferi "put target non-land permanent 3rd from top on top of owners library" onto his empty library...which leaves me with 2 choices: concede out of not wanting to waste my time, or see it through out of curiosity of a possible win condition. well...as a seasoned and stubborn mtg player that I am, I decided to see it through until the end, only resulting in me being outdrawn due to this ridiculous no win condition situation(at least an hours game play). I'm not implying that you should ban this card as I think it is a great card and powerful when played as it should be but surely something has to be done about these kind of situations? if it's a case of "suck it up" then fair enough, but i just think its a really long winded, poor way to win that might put a lot of arena players off. I don't mind losing, I don't mind being out-played. what I do mind is having to wait ridiculous amounts of time. Maybe I'm just moaning because, yes, I will eventually be milled. Does this not fall under the same/similar criteria that Nexus of Fate was banned in best of 1?
As a electronic formatted game (Now) something they could do is prevent the use of Nexus after say, the third time you use it before your opponent gets to take a turn. You get 3 extra turns and then you have to let your opponent take a turn. Something that's hard to track in paper but easy in digital. Thats why its funny watching wizards suffer under the digital format, something hearthstone has been abusing for years. Their event a little while back that generated tokens of cards from an emblem was funny, because they had to say token, so that they could keep it "Paper legal", but some cards say non token, or someshit, they still haven't figured out you can just give the people the cards for that game, or if they have they think that it will infringe on their rules some how.
I think Wilderness Reclamation or Guild Gate being taken care of is perhaps the better solution. If you get rid of Nexus, there are still issues where those sort of decks just stall and boardwipe with their Root Snares and Gates Ablaze till they drop multiple Gate Colossus and Gate rams or Expansion//Explosion. Those sort of builds are at least a bit faster Ill agree though
The main problem with Nexus of Fate is decks running only it and Teferi as their win cons (meaning their only actual way of winning is exiling all of their opponent' board, then letting their opponent have a turn to let them draw a card and therefore "milling" them by 1 and eventually "milling" them out that way while looping Nexus over and over). This - like LSV explained - is *not* an infinite loop (because "both" players - eventually - keep drawing different cards from the top of their decks), therefore this version of the deck simply takes waaay to long to win and should not only be banned out in Arena, but also in Standard.
On a related note, how about Wizards makes standard only the cards actually in boosters, rather than adding extra stuff at random? (Planeswalker decks, Buy-a-Box promos, Global series (Only in China)). The argument they give is so new players can buy a product and play it in standard events, but how fun is getting stomped repeatedly because your cards are deliberately bad anyway?
I am rarely pro banning anything (the most recent ban I liked was the Mentor restriction in vintage), but Nexus not being good for viewers at the invitational is a very good argument. Awesome video, really digging the format.
I don't think the power alone is ban worthy but I think it's one of the strongest decks in the format and we only haven't seen it too much in the new format because everyone is either testing new cards or playing aggro to take down the early meta. I think if it goes without a ban across the board we're going to see it show up more and that's really bad for coverage, along with all the more serious issues it creates on arena.
I had a UW mill deck in Arena that ran Nexus of Fate. My win con was mill and I only needed a few extra turns to mill out my opponents, if I lived long enough to do it. Once or twice my mill enchantments were either exiled from my deck, or hit with Ixalan's Binding. I conceded quickly. I would never have made a deck that had no win con and won by conceding opponents. That is just griefing other players in my book. I love mill decks and loved mine but hey onto another deck then since NoF was banned in single game standard on Arena. I didn't know it was so bad in paper magic. Is it? I don't go to FNM anymore so don't know what is the meta there now.
I’ll admit that I didn’t like the idea when I heard your arguments, but I’ll easily concede that that’s because I pumped wildcards into getting a playset of Nexus and is me prioritizing my investment over the health of Arena.
Can they just say all box toppers are in the "fake card" state that some other promotional cards are so it's only legal in legacy? Printing standard viable cards that are so inaccessible was a mistake to begin with imo, and it would certainly answer this problem.
Ban it everywhere. However what you say about banning it in BO1 makes sense. The fact that the card rotates out of Standard in 10 months makes it less likely to be banned everywhere. My concern is how it will affect "Standard Plus" in Arena.
With it being a box topper a ban would lead to a complete lack of faith in future box toppers. Now if the green enchantment was banned the deck would be knocked down a tier, but still viable.
Nexus is the problem card though all the problems discussed don't go away from making it not as good. They even say in the video its not really a power level ban. A card like Nexus just doesn't belong in Standard period. Same reason Cat combo was banned in standard. Box toppers are almost never worth anything and people can get over it its still a fine card for commander. Its not that the deck is too strong it's that the card itself is just too unfair, not good for the game, or coverage.
@@TalesOfDylan I do agree it is not good for coverage or this format. However I believe the damage from banning one of the box toppers from the format is greater than the benefit of it being removed. Yes the deck is unfun to play against, but the company needs to make it appear as though the box toppers were worth the investment. If the deck gets knocked down to about where it was before the newest set it should have fewer players and a lower win%. I believe banning Nexus will lead to a large loss of product faith when it doesn't have that long left in standard and could be neutered in multiple other ways. Search for Azcanta, Teferi, and Wilderness Reclamation as examples. All of that being said you are correct a card like nexus does not belong in standard and hopefully wizards learns from this mistake by not printing future similar cards.
I think the card should have either been in the set (so a non-foil exists) or not printed at all. However, if the card was a little more wordy and exiled when cast, but shuffled in all other cases, then it would be fair.
There could be something that's codded into MTGA to resolve the issue... I don't know specifically what yet but it could be something like... if the library consists only of NoF cards and the player did nothing last 3 turns but play NoF and end turn, the game auto concedes for him
I'd say that, quite probably, a real mistake was to print Nexus of Fate as an Instant. All previous versions of Time Walk were Sorcery-speed, except some red-based "take an extra turn and then die" and/or some other weird stuff like Gonti's Aether Heart. That's exactly why Nexus's busted with WIlderness Reclamation, allowing you to play Nexus of Fate off four lands (not off seven, or six + mana rock, or anything like that). That's why it's possible for a Nexus/Reclamation player, while having a couple of Wilderness Reclamations on board, to activate Azcanta three times per turn AND still play Nexus of Fate if he could find it with one of the activations. I've rarely played against Nexus on Arena, but when I did, it was exactly as miserable experience as LSV and Matt described - you've lost with 97% certainty, but you can't concede because the opponent can still whiff even with three Azcanta activations per turn with 40 cards left in the deck.
I mean what's the ruling on infinite life gain decks, you can sit there with a million life and the opponent usually concedes. The problem really is the opponent being stubborn and demanding a traditional win condition. In my opinion getting infinite life or infinite turns is a win and it is good form to just concede. Usually a judge could be called over to ask if there is a clear win condition. Perhaps we could see a logarithm that checks your deck and if you don't have a clear win condition when you loop it automatically loses you the game. Or after 3 or 5 turns of infinite looping your opponent loses. Honestly I think the rules for sitting there for hours waiting for another player to win needs to be updated and not nexus of fate that needs to be banned. Because in the end it's the sitting there doing nothing cause your opponent wont concede is the problem.
I think if there willing to ban Nexus on MTG arena why wouldn't they simply ban it across the board, especially in standard- having played against the deck several times in person the Nexus deck type causes many games to go to time thus affect standings. The two biggest issues I have with the card objectively is 1) it creates the potentially unlimited turns and 2) once it gets going the opponent just has to watch you continue to play while you sit there and watch. From my perspective no other card has had a more negative affect on the community especially newer players than Nexus in the standard format. I think only banning cards on arena shows that Wizards cares more about online play than in person, otherwise they would ban it for all standards variants not just online.
Restrict 1, seems the move to me. This allows it to still exist, but drastically reduces the looping problem. Come to think of it, why don’t they use a restrict condition pro actively in designing things like this?
I've played a lot of arena the past year, i like playing RDW atm and I finally got paired against a bant nexus of fate deck and I had no issues with it, i almost killed them, had them down to 1 hp before they popped off with nexus of fate, i wanted to play every out if they happened to not be able to keep it going, and so i waited 4 minutes while having auto pass the turn on and clicking to see if they had a win con and they did, they played a 10/10 Hydroid Krasis. I was enjoying music during this time and I felt ok with it, i feel that nexus of fate should not be banned on arena and I feel arena should not be different than tabletop magic, as i just came back to playing magic after being absent from it for 15 some years, i feel it's vital to a players perspective to play the same type of magic that the pros are so that if we do get good at playing magic maybe we'll have a chance to go pro as well from playing arena.
Funnily if they ban (which they should) it is another case, where their hate cards failed. Unmoored Ego is there, just like Manglehorn was for Marvel, but it seems to slow, not radical enough. They should also take a long hard look at this mana doubling via untapping lands at the end of turn, be in Teferi or that green enchantment.
The fact that Arena doesn't have a match clock completely blows my mind. If it did, it's less likely that we'd even be having this discussion. I think as a card, Nexus of Fate is fine. The direction they want to move Magic into within the greater gaming/e-sports world is amplifying the less fun aspects of the card. I agree that this probably isn't something they want to showcase on the "big screen", but that's more of a consequence of the Arena platform itself. Best of one and no game/match clock means that you open up the possibility for these 45 minute loops with no meaningful progression to the conclusion of the game. You can't do that on MTGO; you have to figure out a way to win the game within your allotted window or you lose. As far as paper Magic is concerned, I think the biggest problem is the card quality that dictates that you are less likely to be able to play it without having to proxy the card. It's unreasonable to expect people to have to foil their deck out just to play with the actual card (though some of us madmen have done it at various points of its existence), but it's also lame that we can't just have a foil card that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Their card stock, or foiling process, or whatever the hell it is really needs to be taken to the next level because it's frankly pretty unacceptable to have such a disparity between the two (foil/non-foil) and that it impacts tournament play. As for what I would do? I would probably just ban it across the board on Arena, unless implementing a game/match clock is on the table. That way, you eliminate it from the Arena client as a whole and if people want to play that kind of Magic, they can do it in an environment that can handle it properly. Sure, it's kind of lame to have different format legalities across each platform, but at least then you don't shaft people who actually had to spend money on physical cards or through MTGO. The Arena economy is basically not a thing at the moment, so I'm not concerned about people losing access to it there.
@@AscendingAce I agree! I love combo decks! I just don't think it's a fun experience for both players. The fun for me in a combo deck (I play casual mostly) is finding the pieces, putting them together, and showing my opponent how I just won. It's not shuffling a deck for thirty minutes. I realize everyone enjoys different things, but if my fun makes someone else have to be bored for that long, it feels kind of selfish. I'm not saying that you do that, but I'm talking about the people like they talked about that keep it going when they can't win and just refuse to concede hoping the opponent tires out first. Don't get me wrong, this card can be played in a non-degenerate way. The problem is that it's too easy to be played in a degenerate way under the current rules for Arena. Either Arena needs a solution, or the card should be banned. Just my opinion.
@@AscendingAce You know what having extra turns feels like? Your opponents turn in Hearthstone! What can you do? leave some mana up? not attack with your minions on the turn you think Nexus will be played? And if you stop the first Nexus, what do you do about the other three?
@@AscendingAce I beat that deck not too long ago, no worries here. The whole "I like playing combo decks" seems a lot less accurate than something more like "I like playing Nexus of Fate".
@@OdePery it's all fun ti'll they fuck it up again with graveyard mechanics and/or some sort of combo. Then you'll have a skewed meta that can't be handled without sideboarding.
@@ekermann Yeah because that is the only deck that was absurdly strong in arena, it isn't like you will see Chains of Mono Red for 10 matches in a row or anything.
i dont think there are "bad ways" to enjoy this game. i really like to play a few quick games, more than one single game. i sometimes have to dq bc i have just half an hour, an hour to play. bo1 is perfect for such scenarios. and even if somebody has the time to do so, bo1 is still a way to enyoj the game, exspecially as a new player
Is there any history of a card being restricted in standard (as opposed to outright banned) with one the odds of finding it go down with a significant number of cards in the deck
6 років тому+1
I believe restrictions only apply to Vintage/Type 1 and that no other format has 1-card restrictions; could have happened to Extended/ Type 2 but I've only been playing since Shadows.
I have been saying this very thing forever. If the card was just instant win (with a cost balanced accordingly) it would be fine - after all, wouldn't be much different from using a banefire for 20 or any other such combo. The problem is the non determinism (and how slow it is to resolve). If my oppo ults teferi (another universally hated card, more than theif I'd say, and slow to win BUT with inevitability), I know i can safely concede, barring cases where i think i have lethal in 1-2 turns. I don't think you should be able to tuck teferi itself, but that's another problem and much less of an issue tbh. But If my oppo plays 1 nexus, possibly withotu azcanta in play, I have absolutely no idea how close I am to losing and how many turns I shoud wait before conceding. I would need to know my oppo's hand at the evry least to be able to make an educated guess - so i'm left to stare at him play for 15 mins until I can assume i'm dead. Which is absolutely horrible gameplay. Not to mention the combo might in fact fizzle, i get another turn but can't lethal him (or maybe he has a fog), and then he starts it all again - this can happen several times (and in fact did, to me, resulting in a 1 hour long game when oppo wasn't even intentionally griefing.)
Torrential Gearhulk was still legal when Nexus came out. Imagine casting an eot gearhulk and getting an extra turn when your opponent is tapped out or defenses down. That would be broken, and that's why Nexus got the shuffle into your library clause.
That is the situation now anyways, it's just done through search for azcanta instead of gearhulk, You cannot go shields down against a nexus deck at any time including the opponents end step.
I'm having to mainboard 3 copies of Unmoored Ego in my Sultai Midrange deck in order to compensate. Sort of a toxic meta. Though it IS fun trying to come up with inventive ways to use Unmoored Ego against non-nexus decks. I won against another Sultai deck today partially because I UE'ed Hydroid and Vivien.
I hate they card because it is like Mind Slaver. It triggers and you have no decisions to make while it does it's thing. Having to sit on your hands and do nothing is the worst thing that can happen in Magic. When you aren't drawing mana or drawing only mana and have nothing to play it feels bad. That is one thing. Having a card that it's intention is for you to sit there while it takes ages doing something is another. This is way worse than Mind Slaver though because you can't respond to it. The fact that the strategy in Arena is often to bore you into submission is something that should never be tolerated because intentionally sapping the game of fun makes it parasitic. Ive had turns slowly drag on for four or five minutes where nothing really happens, just watching a bunch of triggers go off in a potentially endless cycle. When the game plays out the same if I'm there or not makes it zero fun to play against and makes me want to play another game. There is no strategy, no depth when playing against someone who aims to only waste my time.
Why do certain people, pros even, flip the fuck out every time there is a tier 1 combo deck in standard? Marvel - won no major tournaments - banned, Saheeli - won no major tournaments - banned. Many people find it unfun to lose on turn 4 to monored or turn 2 to monoblue nut draw, are we talking about banning Curious Obsession or Light Up The Stage (the true design mistake from RNA)? You know what people dont like doing in Magic? Losing. Can we just stop it with the standard bans and let people play with their cards.
I live in a pretty big city with multiple card stores and there is not a single Nexus of Fate for sale in the entire city. I think just from an accessibility viewpoint it should be banned, the longer time goes on the less copies there are going to be on the secondary market and NONE are going to be opened by players in boosters.
1) shuffle it in the first time it goes to the GY, then exile it the second time. Something like Approach. 2) restrict it 3) unban Emrakul, the Promised End
I don't know exactly how they will ban it, but I 100% agree that it will not be legal in the PAX East Mythic Invitational. From a business point of view, it would be a disaster if the Magic Arena debut into E-sports featured long matches of manually tapping and untapping lands with Wilderness reclamation, turn after turn of churning through their decks.
Tournament matches are limited to 50 minutes and creating an infinite loop can result in your autoloss. Judge is called over, says "ok you now have like 20 turns, what now?" A Nexus deck without wincon would at this point lose due to the judges interference.
Cordeus thank you for informing me. I recently started playing again (when I quit was onslaught) and I’ve noticed a lot of rules have changed. Kind of learning as I go lol.
Nexus of Fate should've costed at least 10+ for what it does. (It is a strictly better Beacon of Tomorrows) Wilderness Reclamation should have only untapped Basic Lands and possibly be R/G. (With the Gruul flavor text behind it.) Teferi should've never untapped 2 lands and also be draw power. (Teferi would've been infinitely more fair if it only untapped 1 land and draw 1, Draw 2 at EoT, or simply untap 2 lands with no draw power.)
Isn't it against the rules of magic to create an infinite loop that does not change gamestates at all from one iteration to the next? In other words, isn't it against the rules to loop nexus without playing other spells (like creatures to attack with) that will change the gamestate?
Nexus is a complete cancer for Bo1 meta. The reason why monored and white winnie are so popular is because midrange decks that would be a natural counter for those strategies are simply unplayable as against a top tier Nexus deck the win rate would be close to zero percent.
The people that build decks nexus decks without win cons are the reason people don’t want it to be a thing. It’s not unreasonable to have a card like Nexus be a thing but because a small bunch of people are doing it, it’s going to ruin it for everyone else. Seems fair.
I know we're not voting - but as a BO1 player I'm comfortable with a complete standard ban :). I don't play it, and I just scoop as soon as my opponent casts it with reclamation out. The reward for waiting around isn't worth the cost in quality of life.
Why don’t they just do what they do MTGO where each person has like a 25 minute timer? Would this not stop the issue of running no win cons or looping Nexus infinitely?
Obviously they don't have the option of just changing the card for Arena, since that would just cause unnecessary confusion. But I don't see any reason why they can't give it the "Hall of Fame" treatment like Hearthstone has done with a handful of cards. Just remove it from Arena altogether (since there's no Wild/Legacy format in the game) and reimburse players with Mythic Wild Cards based on how many Nexus of Fate they had in their collection.
I will just say : Everything is poison, and nothing is without poison, only the dosage determines if it's not a poison. (translated from the french quote, which I find more accurate) And Nexus of Fate is a strong venom ! I didn't played standard MtG:A in a few weeks, mostly because of this card, and mind that I am a freetoplayer with only aggressive midrange decks, and Golgari didn't made me feel this way(Wildgrowth walker, I still hate you :D), and wins were really awesome games, but against a Nexus of Fate deck, wins feel just like against a manadeath/flooded opponent, and loses felt unfair and boring, in both cases they are no interactions between the players (which is fine to a certain extend, see opening quote and RDW for further explanation). This was really interesting to watch too, thank you.
IMO, it should not be banned. Pre RavAll, Nexus decks Top 8ing large events were rare. The problem isn't Nexus. The problem is the interaction between Wilderness Reclamation and Search for Azcanta. Being able to dig 8-12 cards a turn is insane for any deck, let alone a combo deck. If you remove Nexus, here's what happens. -4 Nexus, +4 E/E (if they weren't playing it). It becomes a 4C control deck that just sets up a lethal Explosive on 1 Turn. People will then complain that E/E is too good for standard. Let's give the format a few months to balance. Red decks, Mono-U decks, and GBx decks all have good matchups vs Nexus decks.
You were surprised they printed a timewalk with self-recursion -- but they've done this before with Beacon of Tomorrows. Why do you think Nexus of fate is a problem but Beacon of Tomorrows wasn't? Different standard environment?
I think for a banning on arena they have to be able to provide a "refund" system for the cards like you can dust for full price in hearthstone. They got alot of people from hearthstone over so there is likely going to be that expecation. The other thing when you ban a card you have to look at the rest of the environment to see if removing a deck would ause more instablity to occur within it. In best of one removing nexus would take burn from a large % of the field to an overwelming % of the field so I think you would also want to ban something out if it my thinking as strange as it sounds would be Viashino Pyromancer. Its not insanely powerful but it is the life blood that makes the deck so consistant and its not a brand new card that is flashy like the more powerful light up the stage ( this would be the power level option for me).
@@cacs2201 Its more the 2nd level to think about I think current all the decks are fine power level wise but when you take one thing out you have to look at the other stuff around it to make sure your know pulling out a support beam that takes down the whole house of cards.
Another ban-list in MTG one for bo1s and another for bo3s is daunting, really. We shouldn't even be talking about bo1s in competitive scenary in the first place. Too much differences to remember, too many formats and now with bans in specific play modes inside those same formats will only split the player base (between virtual and paper and ALSO just inside the virtual) which will make harder to find matches and everything related to it. That's a stupid business decision to make on an overall declining market like MTG. I could accept having a ban-list specific for Arena but I think it would already be a big stretch.
If I had approached Wizards (or any conscious magic player) over the last 25 years and said, I have an idea for a card, how about a time walk that's an instant, that instead of being put into the graveyard or god forbid removed from game it will reshuffle into the library when it goes to the graveyard from anywhere. And to make it real special, it will not be in packs and limited to only foil as a promo. And it will be legal in ALL formats. I would be laughed out of the building. This is the DUMBEST card Ive seen printed in recent memory. Every part of its existence is a bad joke. Instant, reshuffles, NOT in packs, ONLY in foil, turns games into snooze fest for opponent and watchers. Everything about this card is stupid. At least most other combo decks, you can realize the game is over. Time Vault/Key on board? Game over! Splinter Twin/Deceiver on board? Game over! Saheeli/Gaurdian on board? Game over! At least as an opponent you know.....ok I can concede. Thats totally acceptable. With Nexus it's never 100%, so you just have to sit there and wait...........and wait........and wait.......and wait.....and wait......and wait....and wait.....and wait.....and wait................................................................................................................. Your opponent might not even be able to kill you, but you cannot know. Especially on Arena, where there is no match time limit. In MTGO, the Nexus player has to at least finish you off before their timer runs out. In paper, you can call a judge on opponent who cannot kill you but keeps looping Nexus. Or at least you can ASK the Nexus player if they have a way to kill you so you can concede. On Arena you are only left to either keep on waiting, or concede blindly. But most importantly Nexus decks force one player to sit around and NOT engage at one point, even though the game may go on for another 10-20 minutes. That is bad gaming. I'm all for powerful cards, and even enjoy broken ones, but Nexus of Fate is a Beacon of Infinite Time Walks at instant speed that was horribly distributed, ONLY in foil, and makes for some unnecessarily drawn out matches that leaves one player playing with themselves while their "opponent" sits and watches them play with themselves.
I've played against this in Arena, and I usually just make them finish it while I tab over to youtube or something. I don't want to concede in case they can't win, so I just... stop playing Magic for twenty minutes. I think it's more of an issue of Arena not having a real system for what amounts to slow play at a casual level. I genuinely had no idea if he had a way to win. It took fifteen to twenty minutes to decide he was bored and play a creature. I have NO clue if he had it in hand and was just having fun with me, or if he took that long to find it. It's just not fun to be held hostage like that. Like I said, I just switched over to youtube, but if your win condition involves me not playing the game, it's not necessarily a good game. Ban it.
Outside of BO1 I have not been terribly impressed with the nexus decks. They just don't seem very good. Easy to disrupt and have very loose win cons, if they don't have a card advantage engine online the nexus's are not threatening at all. It's literally a seven mana explore. Also, referring to the deck being unfun to play against, chainwhirler was both exteremely powerful and extremely unfun to play against last standard season and the whirly boi never ate a ban. Nothing is more unfun that having your first three plays get plague winded by a 3/3 first strike and lose the game on tempo loss on the spot. It literally warped the entire format around it. I personally hate nexus from a design stand point, and would love to see it go, but it seems unnecessary.
I've never been a fan of combo decks in best of 3 formats for that same reason. I find combo decks tend to fall apart once you sideboard in the appropriate hate.
@Jerry Smith Not really sure how to respond to that. R/B aggro was the best deck by a fair margin the entire kaladesh standard, and chainwhirler was the best card in the deck.
Alex Mohr the thing is you can interact with cards like chainwhirler. You can play removal and counter spells and bigger creatures/buff your creatures. But there’s no interaction with or from nexus. The only way to stop nexus from doing its thing is To exile it. So unless you happen to have unmoored ego, or a syncopate at the exact right time and mana, eventually, nexus will resolve, and you get to watch your opponent play solitaire. Most nexus decks I’ve faced don’t even have a win condition. They just want to monopolize the game.
Agreed I have an Esperanto control deck running it. And it is fun to counter the opponents nexus and then take yourself infinite turns the to teferi and azcanta. But would be nicer if it was banned
my main problem is when they stale the game when they have only nexus of fate left in their deck and no way to win so they just infintly loop till you concede
While I don't quite agree with banning Nexus, I can see why it should be banned. I just feel like the new set should come out first: print a turn taking hoser and see how that goes. Could even be in flavour, with Nicol Bolas having an all powerful spell or artifact with him.
LSV: "It's not a good look for coverage when someone has a mountain with nexus of fate sharpied on"
thankfully WOTC slashed all video coverage so that's not an issue anymore!
Well kci got axed because its not good for coverage and unfun to play against
So going by that logic they should ban nexus for the same reason.
D P second sunrise got banned for the same reason as well
What are you reffering to with video coverage, did not find anything with a quick google search, would you care to enlighten me? ^^
@@Furavara WotC hasn't been doing video coverage for GPs at all this year and has yet to announce if there will be any video coverage for them in the future.
@@Furavara they have announced that for GPs going forward they are not doing any coverage beyond text coverage for some of the top8. no more video setups at GPs or streaming. They said there might be exceptions but it will be mostly text coverage and not every round. It's been blowing up on reddit the past few weeks.
"You are forced to Proxy because it is a foil" Man it is awesome to have such great quality of foils that you have to proxy them for official play.
L1 judge here. Its not that it’s a foil in general that it wouldn’t be allowed in competitive tournament play. For a lot of people (since Nexus is only available in foil) it would be the only foils in their deck, and if you’re smart enough you can see where they are in your deck and change the order accordingly, thus possibly leading to cheating. If you had a lot more foils in your deck (say half) then there wouldn’t be an issue, as long as it’s not specific cards that are foil to give the player an edge during shuffling
@@Kayametra As both a mtg judge and a pokemon player, some of the most powerful, specific cards are only available in foil and it is never a problem, and printed from wizards. They know that pokemon players will straight up quit, so they can't make bad foils. Its horseshit that they short magic players that quality.
@@blbblb21223 Wizards hasn't made Pokemon cards in years though.
@@Kayametra or it could be that modern magic foils curl into a cylinder in about 2 hours no matter how you store them.
@@Kayametra wotc should not be able to punish players for their own shitty mistakes. They should print a limited run of non foils and give them to players who come to the gp with that deck. I don't care that it will cost them money. they made the mistake they should pay for it, or they could finally fix their fucking foiling process so our card we pay a shit ton of money for don't go to shit as soon as we get them.
Matt Nass just has to win some tournaments with it and it will get banned
Working on it :)
"If it's so good Matt can win with it, it must be too good..." - R&D, probably
My first time against a Nexus combo deck was even before the release of wilderness reclamation and went something like this: my opponent ran out something like a Vraska on turn 6 or something like that, I countered it; at a cetain point they assembled the combo, went through their entire deck until it was only three nexus of fate left (one was exiled by my thief of sanity), Teferi emblem on the field, my board exiled; I had no way to win, but neither did they, as we both knew perfectly since we had seen their entire deck; they couldn't even mill me out, since they constantly had to cast Nexus to prevent themselves from decking; I had nothing better to do and was feeling pretty pissed at my opponent, so I decided to hold my ground as long as possible; in the end, opponent conceded, I felt great about it. This is kind of messed up if you think about it, including the part about feeling happy that my opponent was more bored by their deck than I was
the problem is that you don't even have to cast nexus not to deck, you can simply discard it to hand size to reshuffle it back without resolving it, and let your opponent mill himself. So unless your oppo lacked enough cards in hand to do it, he might have just thrown that game (not that I feel sorry for him, the card is an abomination).
@@36424567254 they didn't have enough cards in hand, almost none, that's why. Probably didn't know how to properly play the deck and got carried away thinking that they would win if they just played every single card in the deck
I hate that the creators of the game let this even be a thing. At no point should this ever have to be an issue, this card shouldn't exist in this form
Francesco Gulisano I got into a similar situation. He started giving me turns (in the hope that I would mill- I can’t remember how he was avoiding milling himself) but I had enough 1 drops that I could play a land and a one drop and hit him and would eventually win so he conceded.
Ah wait of course- he was putting teferi back in to avoid decking himself
THE FUTURE OF MAGIC
i want a girl to look at me the way Matt looks at LSV
^_^
Lmao
00:19
Stop having anime profile pics and it will mabey happend.
Don't listen to sven. Embrace your passions and find someone who appreciates you.
Absolutely agree, ban nexus, full stop. There is another point you two should have discussed. It's a HORRIBLE idea to split the rules of Arena and paper.
Yes!
"Should Nexus of Fate be banned--"
Yes!
"--on MTG Arena"
Yes!
It's a horrible card that ruins the Arena experience.
The 'split arena and paper' thing they kind of covered with the BO1/BO3 thing, as Arena is both the only place where BO1 matters and is now a place where BO3 matters.
Kestral287 they are testing BO1 in a few LGS as an FNM format. As a dad without 4+ hrs to burn on Fridays I’m actually excited about this.
Without reclamation it's not that good of a card. Turbo fog was bad, but it wasn't as bad as this.
tnx, i knew there would be somebody with the clear logical opinion on this, if you ban it ban it everywhere. Guess whether it should be banned, 'meh', but if it's ban worthy then do not split the rules !!
ps. buy a box promo's should just be cool art of a card in the set, not this 'problems will rise' type of promo's, because either it's a horrible card and thus not worth it to buy a box for, or it's this great card and all hell breaks loose. AKA. the whole thing is actually 'just a bad idea'
Content aside, I really enjoyed the format of this video, and I felt that the conversation flowed naturally between the two speakers and was a great way to convey their arguments. I hope there are more videos in this style in the future!
Reminds me of the early days of magic tv with TSG. They are still the most authentic, funny and enjoyable videos on the channel.
Thanks! We will definitely be doing more of these.
Luis Scott-Vargas Totally agree that this was an enjoyable format to watch and I’m happy to read that there will be more coming in the future! Hope it will continue to be with you and Matt, you two seem to have a nice chemistry with these types of conversations!
I agree, i think it should be banned in all standard formats, BO1 and BO3. Printing of Nexus was a big mistake.
printing wilderness reclamation was just as big of a mistake as well, but without the box topper mess
VenaCava ever since it was banned in best of 1, all my B03 matches have been against nexus. I’m talking 25 games in a row. Most of them are just playing it to have in their deck.
Full stop ban. Being able to loop it back in the deck several times is a terrible mechanic.
I think the issue with banning Nexus from WotCs side is that it is a box promo only card.
But we all knew from the beginning that this kind of promo cards would create a problem sooner or later.
That idea was oh so terrible from the start. I hope they'll ban it and think back on that decision. Azcanta was a way better bab promo.
The real problem is that this card is unfun, not that it is a buy a box promo card.
@@TitaniumDragon Being a box topper makes it bigger problem. Wotc is less likely to ban it because the box topper is supposed to be a selling feature of the box.
It may have been a selling point for a box, but it isn't anymore. It's not like there are still nexus of fates floating around out there in boxes. It's strictly secondary market now. They aren't making any more money off of it. If anything banning it might switch up the meta in a way that requires more new cards to be used and drives sales. Besides they can tote the whole "look we took appropriate action against nexus of fate" thing in order to justify even more broken box toppers to drive future sales.
AlmostSkillfull That makes no sense. If they ban a box topper, wizards is telling people not to bother preordering for special cards because you won’t be allowed to use them. It’s not about the secondary market. It’s about the future consumer confidence. Banning standard cards is always a bad look.
Watching Nexus players concede after Unmoored Ego is one of the best feelings in magic IMO.
I think it's a waste of space to HAVE to carry that. I would love a world where jank decks work. Nexus is a war of attrition. A medieval siege on your time. Maybe a balance will come in next set? If not, ban it in standard.
I run a Temur Nexus deck (shoot me) and have won through Unmoored Ego more than once. Opponent hit me with an oops and felt pretty bad when I killed them with Explosion for 24 off three Wilderness Reclamation in the late game. I agree with the guys that Nexus should be banned, even as a player of it, but I feel like the Temur build is slightly less toxic than the Bant one with Teferi; I can usually win after only a handfull of Nexus plays using my X cost burn spells rather than forcing my opponent to suffer for like 10 minutes.
Even better is when you have someone playing nexus with no win condition, so you ride it out until they make a mistake and you get a turn. Then they quit from embarassment.
If a card is disproportionately not played in physical magic despite being powerful simply because it requires too many slow, repetitive game actions (In this game, shuffling) and is thus only really playable in digital where those actions are automated that's probably a good indication that the card is terribly designed.
There are several decks that match this description but instead are unplayable on digital platforms where they are relatively straightforward in paper. I don't believe this is particularly indicative of anything.
Did you forget that only so many copies were printed in paper and they cost $30 a pop? It’s more accessible online because there’s a physical amount of copies irl
@@khub5660 Teferi is almost twice as expensive as Nexus and yet Esper control which runs 4 copies doesn't run into the same digital vs paper representation disparity.
Frankly the supply issue with nexus is overstated, if the problem actually was that people literally couldn't get their hands on them then the price would be far higher than it is.
Goldenhand The Just Teferi has a high price tag because it gets played in eternal formats. Nexus of Fate has a legitimate X amount of them printed because they were buy-a-box promos. So for every box printed, there is 1 Nexus meanwhile with other mythics, the proportion is not the same as that and is higher. Nexus promotes an unhealthy way to play and since every other eggs style deck got banned, WotC should follow suit and ban that too for the same reasons that KCI and second sunrise were banned
@@khub5660 Teferi was played slightly in Legacy. He barely sees play anymore. He was hyped, but the Modern and Standard demand is what drives his price.
Extra turns should not be: Instant speed, recursive. This breaks both. And with the amount of instant draw since a few years ago, this has become ridiculous, to the point I have considered leaving.
Extra turns should also come with a Drawback.
Chance for Glory has it.
This should be obvious, I don't see how so many players ignore this
In the case of chance for glory, it's a 3cmc outside the typical extra turn colour, and it has the typical red gambling component. The problem with NoF is that it has very low risk for a very high reward, and with very few effective counters.
It would be funny if this video was 10 seconds long with just both of them saying “Yes.”
Or infinite loops of them saying yes ?)
I will say that I did enjoy the discussion about Nexus, I feel that It could have elaborated more on the topic of skewing a metagame and running cards to specifically beat nexus. The re-shuffle clause of nexus applies regardless of being countered/discarded or being cast, which in itself makes exiling the card the only truly efficient way to deal with it. Discard can't stop it from being topdecked and a player can only run so many counterspells, which essentially slow the deck playing them down as well. It feels like contributing to the nexus decks plans in some regards, since they are trying to buy time to assemble their winning board state. Using counters on nexus, leaves you open to losing to teferi and vice-versa. I think many players understand how quickly an uncontested teferi can win a game.
As far as it being cast and resolving, there is the constant shuffling in paper, which wizards is trying to avoid for coverage/play experience reasons. And while this doesn't apply to online play, the arena looping problem is well known and not the most simple to solve outside of an outright ban. Creating seperate ban lists for bo1 and bo3 feels wierd and makes an already complex game, more complex. How would a playerbase that will constantly needs more wildcards feel when they know the have to play a certain format to use a card they had to spend hard earned wildcards on. One of the greatest aspects about magic is that you can play the game however you want and with whichever colors you want.. And while there are decks like u/w which can apply pressure and have counters for backup, it goes back to having a good, well rounded play experience for the majority of players. At its heart, magic is a game and should always be remembered as such. Win/loss record shouldn't need to be taken into account on what a player has to play. And while yes, winning is certainly more fun than losing, being able to play a close game on your own terms is a much more rewarding experience.
To wrap this comment/rant up, I feel as a ban on nexus would be the most logical answer to these issues, since it brings many different issues in both paper and online that no other card in the format currently does.
Nexus needs that big ol' Banhammer to come down on it's head. It's not fun to play, not fun to play against, and every game against it is miserable. I'd rather have Smuggler's Copter or Rampaging Ferocidon be in Standard than have this thing run amok in Standard any longer. I'd also be fine with Teferi being banned, but Nexus is the heart of the problem.
Plain and simple, when a card say's "Your opponent can't play the game." It doesn't belong in Standard.
Just implement some sort of a chess clock, just so nobody can infinitely loop without a win con...
I could see consecutive turns by the same player being considered one turn for the purposes of the clock on MTGA.
All of this requires a lot of additional technology. I’d rather the arena team focus on implementing new features than implementing some tech to just support nexus of fate.
You mean exactly like MTGO has??
ya like mtgo the better online game
actually this would be laughably simple to implement. That's a bit of functionality a first year software developer could put together in a day on the back end. That said, I agree that they shouldn't put any time into supporting nexus of fate... they should just ban it. But this functionality could be used for other reasons than to punish people taking infinite turns
I feel like a pun equity was missed by not calling this "The fate of Nexus of Fate"
Temporal Mastery is the first one to have the Exile text on it, and Nexus is the first to not have it attached since.
The closest we have to a Nexus from past Standard sets would be Beacon of Tomorrow or Walk the Aeons.
I'm fine with a full ban for the reasons described here, including experience playing against opps out of win cons and just looping quite a few times on arena and it being insanely frustrating, but I think a simpler (depending on your perspective) solution is just the implementation of a more traditional timer like in chess or mtgo, because that kind of change is widely applicable to other aspects of the game as well (like running out of time in one turn playing TYS or something)
I think one of the main reasons for it's banning in paper still is the fact it was a box topper, and as such created such a warped way to acquire it. That and all being foiled, of course as discussed in the video.
I would be fine if nexus of fate didn't shuffle back in the deck! That's the stupid part of the card. It doesn't require any clever combo or anything like that, it's just draw cards and take infinite turns.
WotC stated a few years back that they never would print a recurrable time walk again. But they did and look what happened.
15:00 ... If Nexus of Fate cost three or four mana and exiled itself instead of shuffling it into your deck, then we wouldn't be talking about banning it. It would be a four of in every blue deck in standard... and possibly modern as well, but we wouldn't be talking about banning it.
I think the shuffle idea was to keep it from getting gearhulked back. But yeah I think they should just axe the card, it pushes the gameplay patterns towards the 2 extremes pretty hard and as said play patterns with it are not fun.
Making it exile also covered that though; 3UU (you/target player) takes an extra turn after this one, exile Nexus of Fate is a very good but not busted time warp that isn't Gearhulkable.
wotc clearly has the intention of making it a combo card. if they just want to avoid gearhulk interaction, they would just exile the card instead of shuffling it back into library
Nexus is cancer on arena. I used to play arena everyday till about 5-10 wins. Now I play once every few days do a quest or two and log out. Nexus is the sole reason for my loss of interest. I'll instantly concede against Nexus decks. I don't want to risk being stuck in a 2 hour long game again.
Great video, love the insight. Also one thing to note about its power is the fact that it's an instant.
How’s this one:
If a player performs a set of actions repeatedly at least three times, such that:
a) No cards that are “new”, or previously unseen (that is, cards that haven’t been in either hand nor in play before) are drawn; I’m specificslly referring to those cards, revealed, explored, scried or surveiled cards would still be considered “new”
b) No changes to the board are made (number of permanents; their tapped status; mana count in either pool)
...that player receives a loss for failing to advance the gamestate. Apply this rule as a subset of the loop-handling guidelines for digital versions of Magic specifically.
Why? Because repeated actions (loops) can be detected (see mathematical case of infinitely non-repeating sequences), there’s enough computational power for it (game can handle hundreds of tokens with triggered effects, while sending them to GPU to draw), and basic loop rules (player explains loop, names a number, does it that many times, then proceeds to different actions or loses) are much less friendly for a digital representation, though functionally act the same.
Bam. Nexus solved. Future infinite comboes are separated from infinite stalls. Paper, where Nexus is not much more of a problem than regular infinites, is unaffected. Everyone wins.
His example on Thief of Sanity was on point. Edit: as for the question at the end, yes, they should ban Nexus (if not Nexus, Wilderness Reclamation should go - this would be my personal pick for the ban tbh).
Hey CFB. Thanks for listening to the feedback on the KCI video. I think we all appreciate hearing pros opinions on these issues. Last week on Pro Points podcast Sam Black, Mike, and PVDDR, all think the card should be emergency banned. Seems about right to me and the rest of the community it appears.
Time Stretch absolutely does not exile itself. The first FNM I ever won was with a janky deck built around taking all the turns by Time Stretching, shuffling it in with Primal Command, and drawing more with Mind Spring with only 2 win cons.
In light of the recent Nexus of Fate ban, I would like to know your take on the Teferi loop with no win condition?
I recently played a ranked game (best of 1) against a player whom i had apparently removed all available win conditions against. he had the Teferi emblem "whenever you draw a card, exile target permanent an opponent controls" which resulted in clearing my entire board but i still had 20+ cards left in my deck and a full hand(with multiple ways of killing my opponent). He, on the other hand was left with 0 cards left in his deck and continued playing by -3 Teferi "put target non-land permanent 3rd from top on top of owners library" onto his empty library...which leaves me with 2 choices: concede out of not wanting to waste my time, or see it through out of curiosity of a possible win condition. well...as a seasoned and stubborn mtg player that I am, I decided to see it through until the end, only resulting in me being outdrawn due to this ridiculous no win condition situation(at least an hours game play). I'm not implying that you should ban this card as I think it is a great card and powerful when played as it should be but surely something has to be done about these kind of situations? if it's a case of "suck it up" then fair enough, but i just think its a really long winded, poor way to win that might put a lot of arena players off. I don't mind losing, I don't mind being out-played. what I do mind is having to wait ridiculous amounts of time. Maybe I'm just moaning because, yes, I will eventually be milled. Does this not fall under the same/similar criteria that Nexus of Fate was banned in best of 1?
As a electronic formatted game (Now) something they could do is prevent the use of Nexus after say, the third time you use it before your opponent gets to take a turn. You get 3 extra turns and then you have to let your opponent take a turn. Something that's hard to track in paper but easy in digital.
Thats why its funny watching wizards suffer under the digital format, something hearthstone has been abusing for years. Their event a little while back that generated tokens of cards from an emblem was funny, because they had to say token, so that they could keep it "Paper legal", but some cards say non token, or someshit, they still haven't figured out you can just give the people the cards for that game, or if they have they think that it will infringe on their rules some how.
I think Wilderness Reclamation or Guild Gate being taken care of is perhaps the better solution. If you get rid of Nexus, there are still issues where those sort of decks just stall and boardwipe with their Root Snares and Gates Ablaze till they drop multiple Gate Colossus and Gate rams or Expansion//Explosion. Those sort of builds are at least a bit faster Ill agree though
So when will you get coverage back on the Grand Prix events? I wish I could have seen that boros humans deck on camera
The main problem with Nexus of Fate is decks running only it and Teferi as their win cons (meaning their only actual way of winning is exiling all of their opponent' board, then letting their opponent have a turn to let them draw a card and therefore "milling" them by 1 and eventually "milling" them out that way while looping Nexus over and over). This - like LSV explained - is *not* an infinite loop (because "both" players - eventually - keep drawing different cards from the top of their decks), therefore this version of the deck simply takes waaay to long to win and should not only be banned out in Arena, but also in Standard.
On a related note, how about Wizards makes standard only the cards actually in boosters, rather than adding extra stuff at random? (Planeswalker decks, Buy-a-Box promos, Global series (Only in China)).
The argument they give is so new players can buy a product and play it in standard events, but how fun is getting stomped repeatedly because your cards are deliberately bad anyway?
I am rarely pro banning anything (the most recent ban I liked was the Mentor restriction in vintage), but Nexus not being good for viewers at the invitational is a very good argument.
Awesome video, really digging the format.
I don't think the power alone is ban worthy but I think it's one of the strongest decks in the format and we only haven't seen it too much in the new format because everyone is either testing new cards or playing aggro to take down the early meta. I think if it goes without a ban across the board we're going to see it show up more and that's really bad for coverage, along with all the more serious issues it creates on arena.
I had a UW mill deck in Arena that ran Nexus of Fate. My win con was mill and I only needed a few extra turns to mill out my opponents, if I lived long enough to do it. Once or twice my mill enchantments were either exiled from my deck, or hit with Ixalan's Binding. I conceded quickly. I would never have made a deck that had no win con and won by conceding opponents. That is just griefing other players in my book. I love mill decks and loved mine but hey onto another deck then since NoF was banned in single game standard on Arena. I didn't know it was so bad in paper magic. Is it? I don't go to FNM anymore so don't know what is the meta there now.
I’ll admit that I didn’t like the idea when I heard your arguments, but I’ll easily concede that that’s because I pumped wildcards into getting a playset of Nexus and is me prioritizing my investment over the health of Arena.
Can they just say all box toppers are in the "fake card" state that some other promotional cards are so it's only legal in legacy? Printing standard viable cards that are so inaccessible was a mistake to begin with imo, and it would certainly answer this problem.
Ban it everywhere. However what you say about banning it in BO1 makes sense. The fact that the card rotates out of Standard in 10 months makes it less likely to be banned everywhere. My concern is how it will affect "Standard Plus" in Arena.
With it being a box topper a ban would lead to a complete lack of faith in future box toppers. Now if the green enchantment was banned the deck would be knocked down a tier, but still viable.
Nexus is the problem card though all the problems discussed don't go away from making it not as good. They even say in the video its not really a power level ban. A card like Nexus just doesn't belong in Standard period. Same reason Cat combo was banned in standard. Box toppers are almost never worth anything and people can get over it its still a fine card for commander. Its not that the deck is too strong it's that the card itself is just too unfair, not good for the game, or coverage.
@@TalesOfDylan I do agree it is not good for coverage or this format. However I believe the damage from banning one of the box toppers from the format is greater than the benefit of it being removed. Yes the deck is unfun to play against, but the company needs to make it appear as though the box toppers were worth the investment. If the deck gets knocked down to about where it was before the newest set it should have fewer players and a lower win%. I believe banning Nexus will lead to a large loss of product faith when it doesn't have that long left in standard and could be neutered in multiple other ways. Search for Azcanta, Teferi, and Wilderness Reclamation as examples. All of that being said you are correct a card like nexus does not belong in standard and hopefully wizards learns from this mistake by not printing future similar cards.
I think the card should have either been in the set (so a non-foil exists) or not printed at all.
However, if the card was a little more wordy and exiled when cast, but shuffled in all other cases, then it would be fair.
Love this kind of content! Hope you keep making more like it!
There could be something that's codded into MTGA to resolve the issue... I don't know specifically what yet but it could be something like... if the library consists only of NoF cards and the player did nothing last 3 turns but play NoF and end turn, the game auto concedes for him
I'd say that, quite probably, a real mistake was to print Nexus of Fate as an Instant. All previous versions of Time Walk were Sorcery-speed, except some red-based "take an extra turn and then die" and/or some other weird stuff like Gonti's Aether Heart. That's exactly why Nexus's busted with WIlderness Reclamation, allowing you to play Nexus of Fate off four lands (not off seven, or six + mana rock, or anything like that). That's why it's possible for a Nexus/Reclamation player, while having a couple of Wilderness Reclamations on board, to activate Azcanta three times per turn AND still play Nexus of Fate if he could find it with one of the activations. I've rarely played against Nexus on Arena, but when I did, it was exactly as miserable experience as LSV and Matt described - you've lost with 97% certainty, but you can't concede because the opponent can still whiff even with three Azcanta activations per turn with 40 cards left in the deck.
I stopped playing ranked one game constructed in Arena since the deck has become popular. It absolutely is annoying as hell.
I mean what's the ruling on infinite life gain decks, you can sit there with a million life and the opponent usually concedes. The problem really is the opponent being stubborn and demanding a traditional win condition. In my opinion getting infinite life or infinite turns is a win and it is good form to just concede. Usually a judge could be called over to ask if there is a clear win condition. Perhaps we could see a logarithm that checks your deck and if you don't have a clear win condition when you loop it automatically loses you the game. Or after 3 or 5 turns of infinite looping your opponent loses. Honestly I think the rules for sitting there for hours waiting for another player to win needs to be updated and not nexus of fate that needs to be banned. Because in the end it's the sitting there doing nothing cause your opponent wont concede is the problem.
I think if there willing to ban Nexus on MTG arena why wouldn't they simply ban it across the board, especially in standard- having played against the deck several times in person the Nexus deck type causes many games to go to time thus affect standings. The two biggest issues I have with the card objectively is 1) it creates the potentially unlimited turns and 2) once it gets going the opponent just has to watch you continue to play while you sit there and watch. From my perspective no other card has had a more negative affect on the community especially newer players than Nexus in the standard format.
I think only banning cards on arena shows that Wizards cares more about online play than in person, otherwise they would ban it for all standards variants not just online.
Restrict 1, seems the move to me. This allows it to still exist, but drastically reduces the looping problem. Come to think of it, why don’t they use a restrict condition pro actively in designing things like this?
I've played a lot of arena the past year, i like playing RDW atm and I finally got paired against a bant nexus of fate deck and I had no issues with it, i almost killed them, had them down to 1 hp before they popped off with nexus of fate, i wanted to play every out if they happened to not be able to keep it going, and so i waited 4 minutes while having auto pass the turn on and clicking to see if they had a win con and they did, they played a 10/10 Hydroid Krasis. I was enjoying music during this time and I felt ok with it, i feel that nexus of fate should not be banned on arena and I feel arena should not be different than tabletop magic, as i just came back to playing magic after being absent from it for 15 some years, i feel it's vital to a players perspective to play the same type of magic that the pros are so that if we do get good at playing magic maybe we'll have a chance to go pro as well from playing arena.
Funnily if they ban (which they should) it is another case, where their hate cards failed. Unmoored Ego is there, just like Manglehorn was for Marvel, but it seems to slow, not radical enough.
They should also take a long hard look at this mana doubling via untapping lands at the end of turn, be in Teferi or that green enchantment.
The fact that Arena doesn't have a match clock completely blows my mind. If it did, it's less likely that we'd even be having this discussion.
I think as a card, Nexus of Fate is fine. The direction they want to move Magic into within the greater gaming/e-sports world is amplifying the less fun aspects of the card. I agree that this probably isn't something they want to showcase on the "big screen", but that's more of a consequence of the Arena platform itself. Best of one and no game/match clock means that you open up the possibility for these 45 minute loops with no meaningful progression to the conclusion of the game. You can't do that on MTGO; you have to figure out a way to win the game within your allotted window or you lose.
As far as paper Magic is concerned, I think the biggest problem is the card quality that dictates that you are less likely to be able to play it without having to proxy the card. It's unreasonable to expect people to have to foil their deck out just to play with the actual card (though some of us madmen have done it at various points of its existence), but it's also lame that we can't just have a foil card that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Their card stock, or foiling process, or whatever the hell it is really needs to be taken to the next level because it's frankly pretty unacceptable to have such a disparity between the two (foil/non-foil) and that it impacts tournament play.
As for what I would do? I would probably just ban it across the board on Arena, unless implementing a game/match clock is on the table. That way, you eliminate it from the Arena client as a whole and if people want to play that kind of Magic, they can do it in an environment that can handle it properly. Sure, it's kind of lame to have different format legalities across each platform, but at least then you don't shaft people who actually had to spend money on physical cards or through MTGO. The Arena economy is basically not a thing at the moment, so I'm not concerned about people losing access to it there.
If someone goes off with Nexus of Fate I just watch Netflix for 30 mins to punish them with a drug out game.
@@AscendingAce I agree! I love combo decks! I just don't think it's a fun experience for both players. The fun for me in a combo deck (I play casual mostly) is finding the pieces, putting them together, and showing my opponent how I just won. It's not shuffling a deck for thirty minutes.
I realize everyone enjoys different things, but if my fun makes someone else have to be bored for that long, it feels kind of selfish.
I'm not saying that you do that, but I'm talking about the people like they talked about that keep it going when they can't win and just refuse to concede hoping the opponent tires out first. Don't get me wrong, this card can be played in a non-degenerate way. The problem is that it's too easy to be played in a degenerate way under the current rules for Arena. Either Arena needs a solution, or the card should be banned.
Just my opinion.
@@AscendingAce You know what having extra turns feels like? Your opponents turn in Hearthstone!
What can you do? leave some mana up? not attack with your minions on the turn you think Nexus will be played?
And if you stop the first Nexus, what do you do about the other three?
@@AscendingAce A combo deck where you get infinite turns...
@@AscendingAce I beat that deck not too long ago, no worries here. The whole "I like playing combo decks" seems a lot less accurate than something more like "I like playing Nexus of Fate".
@@AscendingAce congrats in the wide world of combo
Even just an errata to sorcery speed would make this card way more balanced than it is currently.
Great video, but some really disrupting echoing going on in your room, would really help listening to these if you fixed that in advance.
My Short answer: Yes.
My Long Answer: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Best of one is such a bad way to play this game.
Best of three is such a bad way to play this game.
@@OdePery it's all fun ti'll they fuck it up again with graveyard mechanics and/or some sort of combo. Then you'll have a skewed meta that can't be handled without sideboarding.
@@ekermann Yeah because that is the only deck that was absurdly strong in arena, it isn't like you will see Chains of Mono Red for 10 matches in a row or anything.
Nevermind, youtube comment trees are awful, I was just pointing out that even the most basic red deck wins ideas are hard to deal with in 1v1.
i dont think there are "bad ways" to enjoy this game.
i really like to play a few quick games, more than one single game. i sometimes have to dq bc i have just half an hour, an hour to play. bo1 is perfect for such scenarios.
and even if somebody has the time to do so, bo1 is still a way to enyoj the game, exspecially as a new player
Is there any history of a card being restricted in standard (as opposed to outright banned) with one the odds of finding it go down with a significant number of cards in the deck
I believe restrictions only apply to Vintage/Type 1 and that no other format has 1-card restrictions; could have happened to Extended/ Type 2 but I've only been playing since Shadows.
I have been saying this very thing forever. If the card was just instant win (with a cost balanced accordingly) it would be fine - after all, wouldn't be much different from using a banefire for 20 or any other such combo. The problem is the non determinism (and how slow it is to resolve). If my oppo ults teferi (another universally hated card, more than theif I'd say, and slow to win BUT with inevitability), I know i can safely concede, barring cases where i think i have lethal in 1-2 turns. I don't think you should be able to tuck teferi itself, but that's another problem and much less of an issue tbh.
But If my oppo plays 1 nexus, possibly withotu azcanta in play, I have absolutely no idea how close I am to losing and how many turns I shoud wait before conceding. I would need to know my oppo's hand at the evry least to be able to make an educated guess - so i'm left to stare at him play for 15 mins until I can assume i'm dead. Which is absolutely horrible gameplay.
Not to mention the combo might in fact fizzle, i get another turn but can't lethal him (or maybe he has a fog), and then he starts it all again - this can happen several times (and in fact did, to me, resulting in a 1 hour long game when oppo wasn't even intentionally griefing.)
Torrential Gearhulk was still legal when Nexus came out. Imagine casting an eot gearhulk and getting an extra turn when your opponent is tapped out or defenses down. That would be broken, and that's why Nexus got the shuffle into your library clause.
That is the situation now anyways, it's just done through search for azcanta instead of gearhulk, You cannot go shields down against a nexus deck at any time including the opponents end step.
I'm having to mainboard 3 copies of Unmoored Ego in my Sultai Midrange deck in order to compensate. Sort of a toxic meta.
Though it IS fun trying to come up with inventive ways to use Unmoored Ego against non-nexus decks. I won against another Sultai deck today partially because I UE'ed Hydroid and Vivien.
I hate they card because it is like Mind Slaver. It triggers and you have no decisions to make while it does it's thing. Having to sit on your hands and do nothing is the worst thing that can happen in Magic. When you aren't drawing mana or drawing only mana and have nothing to play it feels bad. That is one thing. Having a card that it's intention is for you to sit there while it takes ages doing something is another. This is way worse than Mind Slaver though because you can't respond to it. The fact that the strategy in Arena is often to bore you into submission is something that should never be tolerated because intentionally sapping the game of fun makes it parasitic. Ive had turns slowly drag on for four or five minutes where nothing really happens, just watching a bunch of triggers go off in a potentially endless cycle. When the game plays out the same if I'm there or not makes it zero fun to play against and makes me want to play another game. There is no strategy, no depth when playing against someone who aims to only waste my time.
The only deck I run it is my gates deck. I have a very clear win condition but when I'm facing it I don't see a win condition.
Why do certain people, pros even, flip the fuck out every time there is a tier 1 combo deck in standard? Marvel - won no major tournaments - banned, Saheeli - won no major tournaments - banned.
Many people find it unfun to lose on turn 4 to monored or turn 2 to monoblue nut draw, are we talking about banning Curious Obsession or Light Up The Stage (the true design mistake from RNA)? You know what people dont like doing in Magic? Losing. Can we just stop it with the standard bans and let people play with their cards.
I live in a pretty big city with multiple card stores and there is not a single Nexus of Fate for sale in the entire city. I think just from an accessibility viewpoint it should be banned, the longer time goes on the less copies there are going to be on the secondary market and NONE are going to be opened by players in boosters.
The true issue with nexus is its shuffle clause isnt a trigger, its a replacement. One you cannot react to.
1) shuffle it in the first time it goes to the GY, then exile it the second time. Something like Approach.
2) restrict it
3) unban Emrakul, the Promised End
I don't know exactly how they will ban it, but I 100% agree that it will not be legal in the PAX East Mythic Invitational. From a business point of view, it would be a disaster if the Magic Arena debut into E-sports featured long matches of manually tapping and untapping lands with Wilderness reclamation, turn after turn of churning through their decks.
can someone please tell me why a judge would say "you cant keep playing nexus of fate"? i was not aware of any rule.
Tournament matches are limited to 50 minutes and creating an infinite loop can result in your autoloss.
Judge is called over, says "ok you now have like 20 turns, what now?" A Nexus deck without wincon would at this point lose due to the judges interference.
Cordeus thank you for informing me. I recently started playing again (when I quit was onslaught) and I’ve noticed a lot of rules have changed. Kind of learning as I go lol.
Nexus of Fate should've costed at least 10+ for what it does. (It is a strictly better Beacon of Tomorrows)
Wilderness Reclamation should have only untapped Basic Lands and possibly be R/G. (With the Gruul flavor text behind it.)
Teferi should've never untapped 2 lands and also be draw power. (Teferi would've been infinitely more fair if it only untapped 1 land and draw 1, Draw 2 at EoT, or simply untap 2 lands with no draw power.)
Isn't it against the rules of magic to create an infinite loop that does not change gamestates at all from one iteration to the next? In other words, isn't it against the rules to loop nexus without playing other spells (like creatures to attack with) that will change the gamestate?
I played against someone online who played with Nexus, it took 20min for me to get a turn. I conceded after 50min, because I was sooo bored.
Nexus is a complete cancer for Bo1 meta. The reason why monored and white winnie are so popular is because midrange decks that would be a natural counter for those strategies are simply unplayable as against a top tier Nexus deck the win rate would be close to zero percent.
I believe its like ban the card or let it shpe the meta game, dont you guys think?
The people that build decks nexus decks without win cons are the reason people don’t want it to be a thing. It’s not unreasonable to have a card like Nexus be a thing but because a small bunch of people are doing it, it’s going to ruin it for everyone else. Seems fair.
I know we're not voting - but as a BO1 player I'm comfortable with a complete standard ban :). I don't play it, and I just scoop as soon as my opponent casts it with reclamation out. The reward for waiting around isn't worth the cost in quality of life.
Why don’t they just do what they do MTGO where each person has like a 25 minute timer? Would this not stop the issue of running no win cons or looping Nexus infinitely?
Obviously they don't have the option of just changing the card for Arena, since that would just cause unnecessary confusion. But I don't see any reason why they can't give it the "Hall of Fame" treatment like Hearthstone has done with a handful of cards. Just remove it from Arena altogether (since there's no Wild/Legacy format in the game) and reimburse players with Mythic Wild Cards based on how many Nexus of Fate they had in their collection.
I will just say : Everything is poison, and nothing is without poison, only the dosage determines if it's not a poison. (translated from the french quote, which I find more accurate)
And Nexus of Fate is a strong venom !
I didn't played standard MtG:A in a few weeks, mostly because of this card, and mind that I am a freetoplayer with only aggressive midrange decks, and Golgari didn't made me feel this way(Wildgrowth walker, I still hate you :D), and wins were really awesome games, but against a Nexus of Fate deck, wins feel just like against a manadeath/flooded opponent, and loses felt unfair and boring, in both cases they are no interactions between the players (which is fine to a certain extend, see opening quote and RDW for further explanation).
This was really interesting to watch too, thank you.
Why were there proxy NoF to begin with??
IMO, it should not be banned. Pre RavAll, Nexus decks Top 8ing large events were rare. The problem isn't Nexus. The problem is the interaction between Wilderness Reclamation and Search for Azcanta. Being able to dig 8-12 cards a turn is insane for any deck, let alone a combo deck. If you remove Nexus, here's what happens. -4 Nexus, +4 E/E (if they weren't playing it). It becomes a 4C control deck that just sets up a lethal Explosive on 1 Turn. People will then complain that E/E is too good for standard. Let's give the format a few months to balance. Red decks, Mono-U decks, and GBx decks all have good matchups vs Nexus decks.
One thing they might be considering before banning it, is that they might reprint Nexus in Challenger Decks.
You were surprised they printed a timewalk with self-recursion -- but they've done this before with Beacon of Tomorrows. Why do you think Nexus of fate is a problem but Beacon of Tomorrows wasn't? Different standard environment?
Beacon was more expensive and was a sorcery
If I didn’t know you were talking about Nexus, I’d think you were discussing KCI for sure.
I think for a banning on arena they have to be able to provide a "refund" system for the cards like you can dust for full price in hearthstone. They got alot of people from hearthstone over so there is likely going to be that expecation. The other thing when you ban a card you have to look at the rest of the environment to see if removing a deck would ause more instablity to occur within it. In best of one removing nexus would take burn from a large % of the field to an overwelming % of the field so I think you would also want to ban something out if it my thinking as strange as it sounds would be Viashino Pyromancer. Its not insanely powerful but it is the life blood that makes the deck so consistant and its not a brand new card that is flashy like the more powerful light up the stage ( this would be the power level option for me).
Nexus loses to burn tough, how would it be so different?
@@cacs2201 Its more the 2nd level to think about I think current all the decks are fine power level wise but when you take one thing out you have to look at the other stuff around it to make sure your know pulling out a support beam that takes down the whole house of cards.
Well, they banned Nexus and gave a refund to players that had it noe
I would say this discussion became pointless lol
Ban reclamation or azcanta. Without these looping nexus is pretty dang hard. Also wont piss off the people who dropped money on nexus.
yep ban reclamation..
Imo the problem is Wilderness Reclamation. I've only seen it being played seriously in this deck.
Another ban-list in MTG one for bo1s and another for bo3s is daunting, really.
We shouldn't even be talking about bo1s in competitive scenary in the first place.
Too much differences to remember, too many formats and now with bans in specific play modes inside those same formats will only split the player base (between virtual and paper and ALSO just inside the virtual) which will make harder to find matches and everything related to it.
That's a stupid business decision to make on an overall declining market like MTG.
I could accept having a ban-list specific for Arena but I think it would already be a big stretch.
If I had approached Wizards (or any conscious magic player) over the last 25 years and said, I have an idea for a card, how about a time walk that's an instant, that instead of being put into the graveyard or god forbid removed from game it will reshuffle into the library when it goes to the graveyard from anywhere. And to make it real special, it will not be in packs and limited to only foil as a promo. And it will be legal in ALL formats.
I would be laughed out of the building.
This is the DUMBEST card Ive seen printed in recent memory. Every part of its existence is a bad joke.
Instant, reshuffles, NOT in packs, ONLY in foil, turns games into snooze fest for opponent and watchers.
Everything about this card is stupid. At least most other combo decks, you can realize the game is over.
Time Vault/Key on board? Game over! Splinter Twin/Deceiver on board? Game over! Saheeli/Gaurdian on board? Game over!
At least as an opponent you know.....ok I can concede. Thats totally acceptable.
With Nexus it's never 100%, so you just have to sit there and wait...........and wait........and wait.......and wait.....and wait......and wait....and wait.....and wait.....and wait.................................................................................................................
Your opponent might not even be able to kill you, but you cannot know. Especially on Arena, where there is no match time limit.
In MTGO, the Nexus player has to at least finish you off before their timer runs out. In paper, you can call a judge on opponent who cannot kill you but keeps looping Nexus. Or at least you can ASK the Nexus player if they have a way to kill you so you can concede.
On Arena you are only left to either keep on waiting, or concede blindly.
But most importantly Nexus decks force one player to sit around and NOT engage at one point, even though the game may go on for another 10-20 minutes. That is bad gaming.
I'm all for powerful cards, and even enjoy broken ones, but Nexus of Fate is a Beacon of Infinite Time Walks at instant speed that was horribly distributed, ONLY in foil, and makes for some unnecessarily drawn out matches that leaves one player playing with themselves while their "opponent" sits and watches them play with themselves.
It should not be banned. They should implement the same time restraints we have on mtgo. You have 25 minutes to win, if you can’t, you just time out.
I love both of these players very much its great to live in the same town!
I've played against this in Arena, and I usually just make them finish it while I tab over to youtube or something. I don't want to concede in case they can't win, so I just... stop playing Magic for twenty minutes. I think it's more of an issue of Arena not having a real system for what amounts to slow play at a casual level. I genuinely had no idea if he had a way to win. It took fifteen to twenty minutes to decide he was bored and play a creature. I have NO clue if he had it in hand and was just having fun with me, or if he took that long to find it.
It's just not fun to be held hostage like that. Like I said, I just switched over to youtube, but if your win condition involves me not playing the game, it's not necessarily a good game.
Ban it.
Outside of BO1 I have not been terribly impressed with the nexus decks. They just don't seem very good. Easy to disrupt and have very loose win cons, if they don't have a card advantage engine online the nexus's are not threatening at all. It's literally a seven mana explore. Also, referring to the deck being unfun to play against, chainwhirler was both exteremely powerful and extremely unfun to play against last standard season and the whirly boi never ate a ban. Nothing is more unfun that having your first three plays get plague winded by a 3/3 first strike and lose the game on tempo loss on the spot. It literally warped the entire format around it. I personally hate nexus from a design stand point, and would love to see it go, but it seems unnecessary.
I've never been a fan of combo decks in best of 3 formats for that same reason. I find combo decks tend to fall apart once you sideboard in the appropriate hate.
@Jerry Smith Clearly you didn't even read my comment because I said LAST STANDARD SEASON.
@Jerry Smith chainwhirler isn't even that good in mono red anymore.
@Jerry Smith Not really sure how to respond to that. R/B aggro was the best deck by a fair margin the entire kaladesh standard, and chainwhirler was the best card in the deck.
Alex Mohr the thing is you can interact with cards like chainwhirler. You can play removal and counter spells and bigger creatures/buff your creatures.
But there’s no interaction with or from nexus. The only way to stop nexus from doing its thing is To exile it. So unless you happen to have unmoored ego, or a syncopate at the exact right time and mana, eventually, nexus will resolve, and you get to watch your opponent play solitaire. Most nexus decks I’ve faced don’t even have a win condition. They just want to monopolize the game.
Agreed I have an Esperanto control deck running it. And it is fun to counter the opponents nexus and then take yourself infinite turns the to teferi and azcanta. But would be nicer if it was banned
These discussions are awesome!
my main problem is when they stale the game when they have only nexus of fate left in their deck and no way to win so they just infintly loop till you concede
While I don't quite agree with banning Nexus, I can see why it should be banned. I just feel like the new set should come out first: print a turn taking hoser and see how that goes. Could even be in flavour, with Nicol Bolas having an all powerful spell or artifact with him.