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Apr 18, 2012 -- 7:56PM, C-Lion wrote:

They didn't know that Delver would be a problem. You have to remember how far in advance these sets are put together. Their testing picked up Pod as the big thing, and they were clearly wrong. I think their testing process is severely flawed, but the logic was not. Delver was only a potential problem at that point as well.

You definitely have a good point, but potential 3-power, evasive one drops (in blue!) in Standard seem to be something that maybe you would just assume would become dominant. Even if they were proven wrong, it wouldn't be the worst mistake they've ever made. I don't know anything about eternal formats, but Delver gets played in Modern and even Legacy if I'm not mistaken.

Apr 18, 2012 -- 7:40PM, slaugh wrote:

Apr 18, 2012 -- 7:26PM, DerMeisterDoktor wrote:

Apr 18, 2012 -- 7:07PM, phaseshifter wrote:

Apr 18, 2012 -- 6:56PM, slaugh wrote:

Withered Wretch would have been so much better. Carrion Feeder , Gempalm Polluter ,  Bad Ass , Entrails Feaster ,  Rotlung Reanimator ,  Shepherd of Rot ,  Undead Gladiator , Vengeful Dead , Zombie Cannibal take your pick.

I don't think they even considered printing withered wretch. He hoses half the block.

Didn't stop them from printing Grafdigger's Cage

Their reasoning behind printing Grafdigger's Cage was flwed too. If I remember right, wizards said they made the card because of the future potential of g/b undying pod. Flawed logic, rather than deal with a real problem(delver decks), they focused on a potential problem.

The logic was sound, there are several potential decks that could have been created with graveyard manipulation and huge CA engines. Those decks never existed likely because of the cage.
Also, once you remove the cage, you're free to continue using the ressources it denied. Removing W.W. does nothing since he already exiled them.

Delver is one card, and we already have answers to it. We have creature removal and mental misstep. What type of card did you have in mind to stop it? 

You can't really fault them here. Predicting how a metagame will shape up with hundreds of cards interracting is not easy. I haven't seen a single person predict that delver would be problematic when it was spoiled, or even several weeks after. And pod did end up being a successful deck. 

I only remember them majorly screwing up twice.

1. When they hosed wizards (a deck that was fragile to begin with) and completely ignored U/G madness/tog 

2. Affinity.

bloodbraid elf was borderline.

                                                                   "Hey there kiddies! I'm baaaack! Ehheheheheheheheheheheheh!!!!"

Apr 19, 2012 -- 2:58PM, slaugh wrote:

Affinity wasn't that bad. Hosting block tournaments was a bad idea. Affinity in block was unstoppable. Affinity in standard was just another aggro fast aggro deck.

Um, Affinity got 8 cards banned out of standard. Before that, standard consisted of affinity decks and anti affinity decks. That still would lose to it more often than win.

If you were right, the bannings would only have happened in block constructed. The diffrent decks that were created afterwards, like tooth and nail, were only possible when affinity left. You didn't need to be in block to kill on turn 4 with the deck. 

1:

When this was first printed, it was a pretty useful hoser against a lot of strategies. This was before the days of dredge, and whatnot, so most graveyard based strategies focused on a few cards in the yard. Standard, right now, actually has a lot of similarities, so this could be a pretty good hoser, especially in a Zombie deck that can cast it over and over with Havengul Lich.

2:

In limited, this actually seems decent. You can use it at instant speed to get rid of something with Undying that is in the yard. It's also at least a bear. Reminds me of Torch Fiend in that way.