What's "just below" top tier?

Codex
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Say we had a tournament where the following combinations were banned:

  • Strength + Growth cannot be paired
  • Demon + Necro cannot be paired (yes, this means mono-black would be blocked
  • Peace cannot be paired with purple starter

What would be the tournament meta? Which decks would be the next best? Would anyone want to play in such a tournament?

Curious to hear thoughts and opinions!

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Hey @mysticjuicer, would you have any objections if the Codex community used the 19XX name for a format like this? :laughing:

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Can you enlighten me as to what this format is? I’m familiar with Yomi mechanics-wise, but not the meta; is there a “ban the dominant characters” tourney format in the Yomi community?

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Not at all!

@FrozenStorm - Yeah, I run a tournament format that basically bans 4 characters: two of them the consensus top tiers, 2 others among the most popular in the usual no-bans format.

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An explanation of the 20XX and 19XX naming convention. From the ‘know your meme’ site.

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I think the only way to find out is to try (which means ‘yes’ on the third question, at least for me!).

I will say that in my view, Vandy+black starter is a bigger problem than Vandy+Garth. So I would consider banning decks like your Nightmare and my own [Demon]/Balance/Anarchy, but allowing e.g. [Finesse]/Demon/Necro.

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Banning black starter+Vandy? You know I’m down

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Hmm, I’m not sure I agree (I think your CAMS '18 deck is less of a problem than Nightmare or Mono-Black), but I’d be fine with the broader ban if people would prefer that.

Upon reflection, I think the following combos would emerge as “just below S-tier”

  • [Necro]/Blood/Fire. @Bob199 ran this a fair bit in early tournaments, and I can attest it is Very Strong (graveyard + lobbers is nasty, skeletons + drakk frenzy is gross)
  • [Present]/Truth/X (probably Necro or Anarchy, maybe Future or Feral. Quince copying Hyperions is scary, as is Quince copying Omegacrons).
  • Blood/Peace/X (probably Necro or Anarchy, Frenzy offers similar upshot as Suits, good tech 1s to cycle through Peace engine)
  • Anarchy/Growth/Necro (similar to Miracle Grow)
  • Finesse/Demon/Necro I think would still be very strong (Harmony + Dark Pact / Discord / Nether Drain is still good, Finesse Engine + Dark Pact is still good, Meta is still good)
  • Anarchy/Blood/Strength (Birds and Drakk are friends, Zane is still Zane)
  • Balance/Strength/Demon (scary Meta targets, green starter plays keep-away pretty well, birds are still obnoxious)
  • [Past]/Strength/X (Present or Discipline or maybe Necro maybe. Birds + Stewardess makes for some nasty early tempo, splashing Grave gives you upgrade control and a bully hero, Present has purple synergy)

Basically, a lot of red and black still, with a little of the other colors XD

Mono Red and Mono Purple I think would be pretty competitive as well

Who else has thoughts on what would be “playing to win” tournament-viable in this “Codex 19XX” format?

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I think [Necromancy]/Truth/Blood would still be very strong too.

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I’m actually curious whether Garth (especially his maxband) or the black starter (especially Graveyard) is more beneficial to the Finesse plan. I’ve never played the deck myself, but I’d be interested to see both a [Finesse]/Demon/Necro and a [Demon/Disease]/Finesse variant. Not in the proposed 19XX format, though.

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@FrozenStorm you could call the format CodeXX to avoid copyright a longer clunky name

Though I do also like 19XX becoming a tournament brand (licensed by juicercorp ofc)

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