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Ancestral Memories: A History of Banning

We have now had one whole week of a standard environment free of [Card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/Card] and [Card]Stoneforge Mystic[/Card]. People seem generally up beat and happy and can only reminisce about how awful Magic was when Caw Blade was around. There seems to be a consensus that those were the darkest days of Magic.

Oh how short a memory people have.

For this week’s column, I felt like taking a trip down memory lane, to September 2003. During the time of the release of the first artifact set: Mirrodin. And I’ll specifically deal with the standard deck once known as Ravager Affinity. An important thing to note is that Ravager Affinity is the name of the deck after Darksteel was released, Affinity was the name of the deck before Darksteel was released and did not feature the same power level.

Now before I begin, I would like to state this as succinctly as possible…

Caw Blade was NO Ravager Affinity. It was never as powerful, never as menacing and even had they made Stoneforge make a token copy of the equipment it was putting into play, it would NEVER have been as good.

With the standard environment that existed prior to the ban there were the following decks: Caw Every Variant, Exarch Twin, RUG, Blumanji, Boros, Mono Red, Birthing Pod and maybe another one or two tier fringe decks.

Guess how many decks existed once Ravager Affinity was around?

Three

There was Ravager Affinity, Big Red and [Card]Tooth and Nail[/Card]. Even at FMN, there were barely any fringe decks, every deck ran either Artifact Lands, Mountains or Forests and all except Ravager Affinity ran four maindeck copies of [Card]Oxidize[/Card] or [Card]March of the Machines[/Card] or other Artifact hate that makes two main deck copies of [Card]Divine Offering[/Card] seem pitiful and even with all that, it wasn’t enough. If you need further proof listen to Brian Kibler:

“The reason why I’m playing Affinity is because everyone thinks that their decks deal with Affinity, and they honestly don’t. …you win nearly every single game 1 matchup in the format, and then games 2 and 3 are usually 50/50 or 60/40 against you, which is still pretty good odds when you are already up a game.” – Brian Kibler

So let’s start at the very beginning, which happens to be very inauspicious beginnings. With the release of Mirrodin came the introduction of the Affinity ability. And it was okay. See it was the first set in a block and thus the metagame was heavily dominated with block decks from the previous block. Quick someone name what the block before Mirrodin was…

It was Onslaught.

Got it wrong?

Don’t worry, most people do as well because people generally remember the powerful or fun standard environments while forgetting everything else. For reference look at Standard between Urza block and Mirrodin block. Casting [Card]Spiritmonger[/Card] can only provide so much fun.

When Mirrodin was released the metagame was a continuance of Goblins and [Card]Astral Slide[/Card]. So the introduction of Mirrodin introduced the following cards to the Magic psyche: [Card]Thoughtcast[/Card], [Card]Disciple of the Vault[/Card], [Card]Arc-Slogger[/Card], [Card]Tooth and Nail[/Card], [Card]Frogmite[/Card], [Card]Myr Enforcer[/Card], [Card]Solemn Simulacrum[/Card] and the artifact lands.

While all those cards are nice, none are capable of forming a deck as intimidating as Affinity was. In fact, even after Mirrodin’s release the main decks being played were still primarily dominated by Onslaught block cards. That all changed on February 6th, 2004. This was the day of the release of Darksteel, and with it, cards bearing the Modular mechanic, in which one of those cards would be public enemy number one, synonymous with Affinity, though the card did not posses the Affinity mechanic.

The card I am referring too is [Card]Arcbound Ravager[/Card]. Coupled with [Card]Disciple of the Vault[/Card] meant you could attack with a small and unintimidating Ravager, sacrifice all your artifacts to increase his size, all the while having your opponent lose life for each artifact sacrificed. And if that wasn’t enough damage, you could finish your opponent off by sacrificing your Ravager to [Card]Shrapnel Blast[/Card] to have your opponent lose another six life, five from the Blast and one from the Disciple.

Also found in Darksteel is an uncommon that should of probably hold the distinction of being only the second card to ever be banned before it’s release,[Card]Skullclamp[/Card], the first being [Card]Memory Jar[/Card]. I was one of the few to play in the launch day Standard event with four copies of the card, I had managed to scrounge up. My deck went 5-0 without much competition as Ravager Affinity was best at utilizing the Clamp, though soon, approximately the next day, every single deck had to be running four copies of the Clamp if it wished to remain competitive.

This was the day the deck known as Ravager Affinity was created. It would still later receive additional help in the form of [Card]Cranial Plating[/Card] but even before Fifth Dawn was released there was no escaping the inevitability; Ravager Affinity was here.

This is the best approximation to my old Standard deck I could find, Pre-Fifth Dawn and without a sideboard:

[Deck Title=William Blondon – Ravager Affinity]
[Lands]
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
[/Lands][Creatures]
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
4 Somber Hoverguard
[/Creatures][Spells]
4 Skullclamp
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Thoughtcast
[/Spells][/Deck]

One of the first things to note is the differences between Ravager Affinity and current Legacy Affinity. Now the Legacy builds may vary, however many of the same cards are present in both decks, which is a first indication as to the power level of the deck. The second factor was during that time frame, there was no true control deck only aggro decks that could morph into pseudo-control decks. This is in part due to Affinity not being containable but also due to a lack of cards that would constitute a respectable control deck.

And so began an exodus of players and casual support for Magic because no casual, innovative or “fun” deck could survive in the world of Ravager Affinity. It was faster than the fastest aggro deck, had a continuous stream of gas and answers in response to any form of control or hate cards and had a relatively low learning curve for most beginners while guaranteeing success. Worse still, unlike today with formats like Commander to satisfy people who decide to wait out the storm, 2004 Magic did not have such a luxury.

The difference between Caw and Ravager Affinity, is that Caw was a control deck which benefitted from an aggro package while Ravager Affinity was strictly aggro. Further Caw was never able to match the speed and lethality that Affinity attacked with. Last the learning curve on Caw is much steeper than that of almost all decks, let alone Ravager Affinity. The bonus was that Ravager Affinity mirrors did not go to time, usually.

But then the hammer was first swung. It was clear to everyone, even before the dawn of 24 hour Magic cycles that [Card]Skullclamp[/Card] was overpowered and something had to be done. This was further evidenced by decklists that either ran four copies of the card or lost. It was basically played as much as Jace, except it was colorless instead of blue so it was played even more than Jace.

People were up in fuss when 32 copies of Jace could be found in the GP Dallas Top 8, well 32 copies of the Clamp in a Top 8, was not an uncommon site. So on June 1, 2004, Wizards banned [Card]Skullclamp[/Card] from Standard, only three months after it was first made legal. If you wish, you can find the banishment notice here.

Make no mistake though, this had very little effect on Ravager Affinity and worse still, it had a greater effect on the field in comparison to Ravager Affinity. For another Jace comparison, imagine after GP Dallas, Wizards banned Jace and then the next week instead of a 4/4 split between Caw and RUG it was a 7/1 split between Caw and Random. As much as [Card]Skullclamp[/Card] was a powerhouse in Ravager Affinity, especially combined with [Card]Arcbound Worker[/Card], it diminished the speed of every other deck, while leaving Ravager Affinity only marginally slower.

Then came Fifth Dawn.

Affinity received a few new tools in Fifth Dawn but it also received one of its most efficient and a card still despised by Legacy players to this day: [Card]Cranial Plating[/Card]. There was a combination of circumstances that made the Plating a powerhouse; the fact it was printed at common, the fact it was relatively inexpensive, the fact it could be equipped at instant speed (one of the bigger problems) and the fact that the more artifacts one possessed the larger your creatures got.

That last one still remains the problem to today, as common hands in Affinity can dump their hand on turn 1, which meant by turn 2 you could equip and attack with an [Card]Ornithopter[/Card] for six to seven, depending on the number of lands and [Card]Thoughtcast[/Card]s you had drawn. Next turn, the possibility of attacking for lethal was a very real.

So regardless of how powerful Caw may have appeared at any one time or in any iteration, never did it threaten a turn 4 kill. This presented a problem for Wizards and thus approximately one year later came the banning of eight cards to essentially banish the deck forever. Those eight cards were [Card]Arcbound Ravager[/Card], [Card]Disciple of the Vault[/Card], [Card]Darksteel Citadel[/Card], [Card]Ancient Den[/Card], [Card]Seat of the Synod[/Card], [Card]Vault of Whispers[/Card], [Card]Great Furnace[/Card] and [Card]Tree of Tales[/Card]. The ban article can be found here, but to summarize this was done to send a clear message to the entire community that the deck was no more. It would be on par with banning [Card]Squadron Hawk[/Card], [Card]Preordain[/Card] and the blue white dual lands to ensure that no one plays any version of the deck ever again.

There is an obvious similarity with the bannings, where the cards banned overshadowed the rest of Magic. Jace and Stoneforge are both from the Worldwake set and overall the Zendikar block has largely overshadowed the Scars of Mirrodin block as no strategies currently around are solely focused on Scars. The same could be said for the Ravager Affinity deck, when the cards were banned, Magic was dominated by cards that were from Mirrodin block. There were appearances from Kamigawa Block cards but very few as the block was overshadowed by the Artifact block. So by banning the artifacts, it kept around some Mirrodin Block strategies but forced the metagame to shift and include Kamigawa.

Thus wraps my reasoning behind why Caw was never going to be on par with Ravager Affiinity. Now some may argue that it is a case of an older player coming to the defense of older cards or something along those lines but that is not the case. Also, I only come to the defense of cards in the old card frames, Mirrodin introduced the new card frames and almost made me decide to leave Magic. I’ve gotten use to them, slightly, but I still don’t like them, plus that Judge Promo Sword of Fire and Ice is a million times better than the Darksteel version.

Sorry for the detour.

With all of the technology available to us and a tournament every week that can refine each iteration of a deck, Caw had many advantages. The deck was tested and refined to a point were it was easily the best deck in the format and seemingly untouchable. Ravager Affinity had no such scenario. Every now and then, new tournament results were posted and players could come up with better versions of Ravager Affinity but surely not the best. It wasn’t as fine tuned as decklists are today and if it was, the cards would have most likely been banned before they were. Yet putting every other argument aside the biggest one is based purely on numbers; Caw had two cards banned, Ravager Affinity had 9 cards banned. Or in numbers within a deck, Caw had 8 cards, Ravager Affinity had 36 cards banned, that’s more than half the deck! So many may chose to believe that Caw was the best Standard deck around, but those people are sorely misguided. If you don’t believe me, build versions of both Standard decks and play them against one another. Caw doesn’t stand a chance. In fact, Caw may be one of the most dominant Standard decks ever within its Metagame but to state that Caw is better than Ravager Affinity, [Card]Tinker[/Card], [Card]Survival of the Fittest[/Card]/[Card]Recurring Nightmare[/Card], [Card]Cadaverous Bloom[/Card]/[Card]Squandered Resources[/Card] and Trix is incredibly short sighted as not only were those decks the best in their Standard environment but the competition that they faced was far superior to that of the current Metagame. One must also remember that the reason for the bans was a similar reason to the Ravager Affinity bans, Magic was no longer fun.

Let me know what you think of the article in the comments, I’ll read every one and until next time: Have FUN Playing Magic!

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