It’s that time of year again, and the DCI has announced changes today to the Banned and Restricted Lists:
Announcement Date: December 20, 2010
Effective Date: January 1, 2011
Scars of Mirrodin Block Constructed, Standard, Extended, Vintage
No changes
Legacy
Survival of the Fittest is banned.
Time Spiral is unbanned.
So Survival gets banned and High Tide players now get Time Spiral to add to their list of goodies. It’s a Brave New World. Erik Lauer from the DCI explained the decision briefly:
“In recent months, Survival of the Fittest decks have been outperforming other decks in Legacy. This has caused the competitive format to become significantly less diverse. This has reached a point where the DCI concluded that it is appropriate to ban a card.”
We’ll have more analysis on what this means for the format later this week.
Let us know your thoughts on this news in the comments below!
Jaco is a longtime Magic player, author, and strategist, specializing in Vintage, Legacy, Modern, and Type 4. He is one of the co-founders of Eternal Central, and the Content Manager and Sr. Editor. A purveyor of rare and unique Magic cards, he is know in some circles as "The Godfather of Pimp."
In his free time he enjoys exploring the great outdoors, dominating the dojo, and punching unprotected sandwiches. 
The problem with Survival being banned is it is only symptomatic of the larger problem with Legacy as a format; R&D does not design cards with eternal formats in mind. Granted, there are some cards designed which are “playable” in enteral formats (though I doubt a lot of testing went into them and few are defining). It would also be a logistical challenge to test in formats with plus 10,000 cards (in reality though there is probably less than 500 “playable” cards in the eternal formats). The printing of Iona made Reanimator as powerful as it was and Vengevine and Ooze made Survival powerful.
All that said, Legacy (and to a lesser extent Vintage) will likely always be the subject of cards being banned due to unforeseen interactions. While WotC doesn’t observe the secondary market, it actually disincentives innovation in Legacy because if you find the “best” deck like Mystical Tutor/Survival decks, odds are it will be banned which tanks the financial investment Spike’s make.
Additionally, while it is true that Survival decks have seen their share of dominance the past quarter in recent 5K’s, there are several problems with this as a warrant to ban Survival.
First, the banning of Survival seems inconstant given that Jund was allowed to proliferate top 8′s of 5K’s for nearly a year. Survival hasn’t dominated for even half as long as Jund did and its numbers are relatively comparable.
Second, it assumes that Survival decks are not beatable. The problem with Legacy is that with a limited number of large events and a small number of dedicated pros, there is not a lot of innovation in the format and if there is, it is slow to happen. If the “top tier” decks cannot seem to win, then maybe people should start over by designing a new deck with a given meta game in mind. Instead you see the same decks trying to add cards to their main deck or add more sideboard cards to improve the match up. The irony here is that there is probably some thought that banning Survival opens up space for other decks to be competitive; however all it will end up doing is allowing the same decks to compete that did before hand. A good historic example of how innovation can solve is when Counterbalance and Threshold decks were overtaken by Aggro Loam and Dragon Stompy. The Survival meta game, having only been around for three months, really didn’t have time to develop new decks to take down Survival. Even most of the articles that have talked about Survival have only talked about how terrible current decks are against Survival. Again, rather than attempt to innovate and beat Survival, most authors and players have just assumed the deck is not beatable.
If anything, the sign of a healthy format is not one in which there is the absence of a “dominate” deck, rather it is a format in which innovation is rewarded and meta games and decks shift. This ban does not promote innovation, rather it reverts the format to what it was. The notion that there are decks that have “unwinnable” match ups are accurate observations to make. The problem is that writers talk about these decks with an implied assumption that they “should” be able to compete with Survival. If the traditional decks in the format cannot compete then they should be relegated to the sidelines as new decks rise to take their place. At least, that would seem to be a healthy format.
Overall, I find it disheartening that WotC really gives eternal formats the shaft most of the time. There is little support and attention given the formats outside of B&R updates. The lack of R&D foresight when designing cards causes terrible ripples in the secondary market and makes for an unstable format when there is a risk of a ban. The two cards that have been unrestricted this year have had almost zero impact on the format. The flip side is that WotC has banned two cards effectively killing at least three deck types (Reanimator, Survival, and nurfed Combo). WotC has done more to stifle creativity in the format than promote it this past year. As an alternative, WotC could of issued an errata to Phyrexian Devourer which would of nurfed the Ooze Survival decks or at least made Survival slow down significantly if it was going for a combo finish. I suggest this because the Ooze version of Survival was cited as a reason for banning…
Its disappointing that WotC seemingly only looks at results when determining a banning. There is no testing, no articulation of the process and no clear definition of what constitutes banning a card. Making a quantifiable set of guidelines of what constitutes banning accessible to players only seems fair. Even creating a watch list which “at risk” cards are placed on prior to banning a card, would help solve some of people’s complaints surrounding the Banned and Restricted list’s implementation. WotC won’t break the Reserved List because of a promise to collectors to protect their investment, so how about some enacting some policies to protect players from investing in a deck only to have the value tank three months later?
The number of articles and good/warranted posts that articulate why banning Mystical Tutor was unnecessary are abound. In those same articles the warrants WotC gave for banning Mystical Tutor where critical analyzed and concluded to be poor reasons to ban (to say the least). Its funny how WotC hears the complaints of people when it comes to a card being “dominate” but is silent regarding the criticism surrounding the B&R list policies.
Very well said Patrick!
If we look carefully on the past three months we can see some random player win with some version of Survival, GW or GU or Ooze combo….
The deck is good ok, but as many people can see, not invincible.
I believe also that some people just don’t care about creating a new deck for lack of time or lack of pacience, then it leaves the option of NetDecking hopping for some Saint Graal in the format!
Just adpating our old deck to a new environment isn’t allways the best strategy.
For example, UBG Landstill is almost dead by the time and there are still one or two players playing it! There are plenty of good versions of Landstill and they keep pushing it to UBG….
We really need to create something new and Survival wasn’t helping since it arrived!
Let’s take this banning as a good turning point so we all can think a little and create some new good stuff by our self
I agree with ban mystical tutor as simple as you just look for the main card in your library to win the game, remember, there is no tutor in poker, i hope they ban the others tutor just to make the game more enjoyeable.
About survival, i think it was the worse step mtg did in their ban history.
I stop playing magic for almost 3 years. i was planning to come back and play legacy. my first idea was to make a survival deck. and i just realize it has been banned. so sad. survival is not a unbeateable deck. starting at that point legacy has a lot of good decks and variants that u can make. my favorite is survival and i will not been able to pay it at least in legacy. and u know even les people play vintage.
for patrick i totally agree with u.
for zodiark we always have the opportunity to make new decks… just people doesnt like even to try.
and for micael this is not poker this is mtg and it has been tutors since the very start of the game. and normally it doesnt make a deck unwinnable. they are part of the strategy of the game. and for mee it is a good idea. for them to exist it give more strategy to the game. and make it not all depends of the luck (and yes you need it, because sometimes you are topdecking and u need the tutor or the card itself and nonbody shows of u know? of course it improves the probabilities.