I realize this wasn't my best draft, that's why I lost in the first round. I usually end up with a better curve, but I guess I wasn't paying attention to the casting cost as much as I should. Plus, I usually do a bit better than a first round loss but that happens to everyone sometimes.
This article and reality don't really seem to have much connection. Faeries is THE deck of this format. Only unlike PT Hollywood it is putting up the numbers expected of it. Playing a non-fae deck at a PTQ is pretty much a choice to not run the best deck.
In a PE today I faced three mirrors in the swiss which is only slightly above what I would expect. Last PTQ I played 5c control and probably would have top 8'd if I rememered Cryptic Command was an instant. That said there is no way in hell I would not play faeries this weekend.
do you have to pay for anything, like for the cards that you buy online or anything else, because when i was watching one of the videos, it asks for your credit card
So I'm really thankful for this decklist--I'm a frequent player, but I often get myself lost in romantic deck ideas ("All knights! Brilliant!"). This list inspired me to put together a list that has me winning decidedly more than losing for the first time in months. I thought I'd share the idea behind it to express my gratitude.
Basically, I took this exact list, and substituted in 4 steel of Godhead for the rustic clachans. In order to make it hit more, I through in zealous guardian for the forge tenders (which are now in my sideboard, replacing the bordergaurd). I'd put in the mutavaults, but I don't have the money right now. Anyway, the list works great and can pretty easily get past Little Kid GW, although still having some problems with the elementals deck, mostly depending on draw.
Well good article...but I fail to see how there are a) 13 playable decks in block and b) how kithkin are the most popular.
With Faeries having claimed a total 58.62% of PTQ wins and Kithkin a very very distant second at 13.79% of envelopes. Not too mention faeries have twice the top 8 showings that kithkin do.
So you are definitely right in the fact that merfolk can contend its the third best deck based on wins so far....and I do believe its a strong deck. Though with faeries so dominant I dont know if people will take the chance often.
I thought this article was fantastic--I play a fair amount of MTGO and usually end up losing. I get hung up on romantic decklists ( "This all knights idea is brilliant!") and spend a lot of time hoping that my elaborate scheme will come to fruition.
I got tired of this state of affairs today and put together a list based on what cards I already had, and my budget, but it was essentially Walker's list. Not only have I won a startling majority of my matches, I've had a blast with MTGO for the first time in a solid month. I thought I'd post my slightly different list as a sign of gratitude, and for any comments anyone wanted to make.
Creatures are exactly the same, with the difference of Zealous Guardian for Burrenton Forge-Tender, which is now in the sideboard.
Spells are basically the same (I've been having to run a mirror entity instead of one of the mirrorweaves, because I just haven't finished trading yet and got impatient) except I don't run the Rustic Clachan. Instead, I run 3 Crib Swaps and 3 Steel of Godhead. I find that the advantage of having an unblockable lifegainer makes a big difference.
I would run the mutavault if I had it. At the moment, it's just the windbrisk and the plains.
Finally, the side board is a little different because of needing to side in the Forge-Tender.
As soon as you saw spectral processions p1p2 you should've been thinking GWr right then. p1p3 where you took Scumbags is an ok pick, but i think you commented on no other white spells in the pack, there is the little skulk (who is a complete badass) and the rune-cervin riders (which by looking at the hybrid mana symbol for its pump tells you that it could be very good in WG). Now to the worst pick of your entire draft, p1p4, you picked a hungry spriggan over a spawnwrithe. First off, i don't know how he made it past 3 other people.....understand that if spawny damages the opponent once, you should win the game, and there is plenty of ways to get him through the red zone in W/G.....turn to mist, barkshell, curse of chains, niveous wisp, somnomacer, silk bind(i know you didn't see this guy, but if you were W/G u could've played him). Game, set, match! You also screwed up on the first Howl of the Night Pack, Barkshell is an easy pick there, i think howl is the best of the corrupt cycle cards(not counting aromored ascension), but at 7 mana you need more than 2 druids to play it and even then, they weaken the spell (devoted druid anyways, farhaven helps it quite a bit).
Pack 2 you were already dead set against white so commenting doesn't do much, other than the white kept coming. Armored Ascension (awesome: it doesn't care what color the creature is, unlike the other god auras), aethertows (amazing), more white two drops, shields of the oversoul (u should've been playing these instead of passing them). You should also be valuing morselhoarder more too, could've easily splashed bolts and to get red for the spout.
Pack 3 by this time the deck is to far gone and you have completely drafted yourself out of the tourney, not trying to be mean, just critical.....i like all you guys here at mtgotraders. P3P1, you pick scumbags over more removal in mercy killing which maybe is a toss up. People don't like mercy killing but it is good, cuz it's removal, likely targets that don't hurt: silkbinds, witches, flyers and reachers(if you have fliers). Targets better being in the form of 1/1s: any of the HHHHH creatures, creatures enchanted with god auras(shield of the oversoul doesn't save it) Targets on your own creatures: any high power with your damage on the stack. You should see what that does for your drove of elves. Only other critical pick was the roughshod mentor over the scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt is awesome, it ramps to your 5 drops one turn early and gives you the splash option, and once again, shuts down that shield of the oversoul, or any other god aura. This is already too long, adios.
This deck has WAY too many four and five drops. SSS is a fast format. You picked those Howl of the Night Packs way too high. The Blessings and Elvish Hexhunters would have been much better selections for your deck. You could have picked up two hexhunters, which due to all the enchantments, is a key card in this format.
Scar = GREAT Friggin spell. You passed two of them. They are removal, and persist screw, you should take them higher. Also I notice that Wisps aren't rated high enough yet on MTGO, these are great spells for messing with combat math. Shutting down someone's Liege effect or Aura on an attacking creature is pretty good I hear, and when it gets you a free card to boot, it will at worst thin your deck for you.
The other thing I noticed (and I may be wrong, as I haven't seen your other drafts) is that you seem to have it set in your mind that you should only draft the hybrids of your colours (R/G hybrids in this case) you should look closer at all hybrids you could reasonably play (B/R R/G G/W) in this case.
According to Solice, the server status widget on the MTGO homepage has been fixed. We'll have to wait and see how it handles this week's downtime I guess, but at the very least, the date/time is being updated. :)
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what the first half of your post said. The mana curve of what gets thrown out of whack? PDC? Do you mean the fundamental turn? Because right now, your post makes very little sense.
personally i just see the mana curve getting completely bent by doing this however keep the lands restricted and curve intact then allow one plating there's still more then enuf removal in the game to deal with it. (more ways to remove a single artifact then to remove a horde of tokens for example....)
Just so you know in some Peasant Magic tournaments artifact lands actually have been banned in addition to Sol Ring and Skullclamp, mostly in events that happen in Paris, France. Though for some reason they never banned Cranial Plating, so I guess it's a different approach to banning cards. I just thought you might want to know that since you mention the format in your article.
Singleton is the only thing i'm plaing right now on MTGO, especially 100 card singleton.
You should try to cover it next time, with some basic strategies for the format, like the proper number of cards and long-term strategies.
I've palyed vs that dredge deck about half an year ago, it smashed me (MUC)!Your list look like a good improvement, congratulations! Also loved the Kiki-Pester-Garrul deck from last article!
i think this mention of color resources brings up a good point, maybe affinity in the current meta would be less powerful than before, simply because more pilots would try to maximize the amount of artifact land greatly reducing the number of blue sources. I have tried playing around with all the arti-lands before and if you max out your manabase with them and someone focuses on taking out the blue sources, you are much more pressed not to just die a few turns in when you no longer have access for mana to draw cards. This may be a random way out there point and i have no real understanding but it seems to me like it may be a viable point.
While i am not actively playing now, i do think that now is as good of a time as any to take an action on Affinity and Artifact lands.
@Evu While i may not be as much as old timer as you, i do feel like that this issue has been talked about many times before. Each time a small group of players try to test decks against affinity. Both with Decks that are unprepared and decks that are prepared. The Past few times there has been a feeling that an unrestricted affinity (by that i mean a full compliment of Art lands) could potentially be safe to throw back into the meta.
What Hasn't been done is a live test of the deck. Put it in hands of the unskilled or new players. Put it in tournies where you don't know if that is the next deck around the corner or not. We can test in a control enviroment till we are blue in the face, but until its been put out there we do not know what will happen. I will only consider it adequate when it has shown up unrestricted a few times at CPDC
Spike mentioned that 14 sets have rolled into pauper classic since the decision has been made, every color has an answer to affinity. And other decks have become tuned enough that they can beat Affinity with a properly prepared (by prepared i do not mean have all of the anti-artifact cards in the board, but someone who has actually play tested a deck and know how to successfully pilot the deck)person.
SO in short. bring back the artifact lands and put them on a 30-90 day review. Cranial plating is still bad. Do it before tempest comes out so things are muddled up.
I like the idea of shaking things up and if we are going to do it, i would do it before tempest comes online.
Spike and I have discussed this issue in the past, but I'll post my thoughts here so they're public. It's possible that some of these are a change from opinions I've published before.
First, on principle I dislike the idea of having any banned cards in an eternal format. If we are going to relax the B&R list, I would rather restrict Cranial Plating before we unrestrict the artifact lands. Yes, it's an "I win" card, but so is turn-2 Myr Enforcer. At least with a restricted Plating you only have to worry about one copy of it.
Second, I think several of the cards on the list in point 1 don't belong. Trading 1-for-1 with a creature (or, more likely, a Welding Jar) on turn 4 doesn't address why Affinity wins. Some of those cards can't ever kill Enforcer or Behemoth.
Third, I don't think that there's anything wrong with the Pauper Classic format that needs fixing. With regard to Affinity in particular, I've played it a couple of times recently and found it to be in fine shape. That said, I think we can expect to have Lotus Petal by the end of this year, and that will provide a good opportunity for a re-examination of the B&R list. I'm in favor of postponing this whole discussion until then.
But I can tell you from experience that JMason is right: this discussion will never cease. No matter what we decide. Not that I don't understand why, but, from my old-timer's perspective, it's frustrating to hear people always wanting to "test" something that, in my mind, has already been adequately tested. How often is too often to shake up the banlist? If we try unrestricted Affinity now, then ban it again, how long before we repeat the cycle? A stable banlist has its own benefits that need to be weighed against whatever benefits we'll get from changing it.
Why do something like this which makes the B&R list even more convoluted? Also, I highly doubt unrestricting Citadel would do anything, since it would eat valuable colored mana sourcs.
Personally I enjoy the fact of decently affordable decks showing back up the metagame, mainly gassy knoll and rdw. I understand the need to compete and has good cards but being a college student I like seeing affordable options that can do well outside of the normal metagame of Elves, Faeries, Lark, and R/G. I know the decks still arent cheap but lacks of Bitterblossoms and Mutavaults certainly lessen the amount of meals I have to give up in order to be competitive.
Just as reference if you ever saw me you would know I dont like skipping meals though buying playsets of those would make my pants like me better.
We're falling off-subject, but your post was a direct response to me, so I am going to respond to it:
I flatly reject the faulty logic that you can take away the player who had the BEST results with a top-tier deck and say that it's "[no better] than any other high-level deck." That's just a ridiculous, statistically unfounded way to evaluate decks. Take any solid, high-level deck and add in more wins than any other player has ever had with any single deck in history, and I bet you'd get something ridiculously dominant. MUC has had very few pilots. It's a hard deck to pilot. If it just happens that its ridiculous, utter dominance is highly concentrated due to those factors, it still doesn't make that dominance any less "real."
we had a thread to test some slightly modified current "top" decks against affinity with unrestricted land.
Spike and I did quite some testing and then stopped from lack of time.
The preliminary results were that a few decks couldn't deal with it, a few simply crushed it (MBC, Burn range, RG aggro for example) while most were about par.
IMO, unrestricting lands would leave a changed but still balanced meta (whatever that means).
It would probably make "random" unprepared decks lag even more behind but that is what happens when you pit them against any top unforgiving deck (Burn Range, MUC etc..) and not a huge concern of mine, as long as there is room at the top.
By the way, Gorilla Shaman is good but not even necessary. Red has many other options against Affinity.
All six of the artifact lands are restricted, right? If so, why not start off by unrestricting Darksteel Citadel? It has a downside (colorless) that the other lands don't have, so I think a good argument could be made for not treating it like the other artifact lands. That would give three additional artifact lands to Affinity decks; not a huge improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Test the waters a bit, rather than just jumping head first into complete unrestriction.
Not your fault at all... I've been having an inordinate amount of foot-in-mouth disease lately. :p
PDC arguments about Affinity? There weren't a lot really. There was a lot of concern at the time regarding the health of PDC. You mentioned most of it. PDC was budding. Affinity was really strong and very 'unfun' because of its overwhelming power in comparison to the rest of the field. There was some cry to allow CoP: Artifacts but instead Affinity was neutered and pretty much everyone was okay with it. I recall a few vague people who wanted to give it more of a chance to be beaten, but by and large, the community backed the decision to tone it down.
But as you also mentioned, a lot has changed since then. There are more tools to fight an early Affinity hand, and more decks have more answers at their disposal than they did when Affinity got the smack down.
If it were a vote, I'd vote for Artifact lands to be unrestricted, and leave Cranial banned. Give it a full season of support and time to prove itself and to let the counter-strategies come after it. Maybe it's not that great anymore. Maybe it's better than ever. There really is only one way to find out though.
I realize this wasn't my best draft, that's why I lost in the first round. I usually end up with a better curve, but I guess I wasn't paying attention to the casting cost as much as I should. Plus, I usually do a bit better than a first round loss but that happens to everyone sometimes.
This article and reality don't really seem to have much connection. Faeries is THE deck of this format. Only unlike PT Hollywood it is putting up the numbers expected of it. Playing a non-fae deck at a PTQ is pretty much a choice to not run the best deck.
In a PE today I faced three mirrors in the swiss which is only slightly above what I would expect. Last PTQ I played 5c control and probably would have top 8'd if I rememered Cryptic Command was an instant. That said there is no way in hell I would not play faeries this weekend.
do you have to pay for anything, like for the cards that you buy online or anything else, because when i was watching one of the videos, it asks for your credit card
So I'm really thankful for this decklist--I'm a frequent player, but I often get myself lost in romantic deck ideas ("All knights! Brilliant!"). This list inspired me to put together a list that has me winning decidedly more than losing for the first time in months. I thought I'd share the idea behind it to express my gratitude.
Basically, I took this exact list, and substituted in 4 steel of Godhead for the rustic clachans. In order to make it hit more, I through in zealous guardian for the forge tenders (which are now in my sideboard, replacing the bordergaurd). I'd put in the mutavaults, but I don't have the money right now. Anyway, the list works great and can pretty easily get past Little Kid GW, although still having some problems with the elementals deck, mostly depending on draw.
Still, great work, and thanks for the help.
There may not be 13 playable decks, but for the season so far, those are the ones that have at least one top eight credit.
Merfolk is not a fluke, that much I do know.
Well good article...but I fail to see how there are a) 13 playable decks in block and b) how kithkin are the most popular.
With Faeries having claimed a total 58.62% of PTQ wins and Kithkin a very very distant second at 13.79% of envelopes. Not too mention faeries have twice the top 8 showings that kithkin do.
If I had to name the playable block decks it would go Faeries, Kithkin, Merfolk(10.34%), Quick n' Toast(6.9%), Elementals(3.45%), and Rock(3.45%) Stats from: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/season_summary.php?event=19
So you are definitely right in the fact that merfolk can contend its the third best deck based on wins so far....and I do believe its a strong deck. Though with faeries so dominant I dont know if people will take the chance often.
I thought this article was fantastic--I play a fair amount of MTGO and usually end up losing. I get hung up on romantic decklists ( "This all knights idea is brilliant!") and spend a lot of time hoping that my elaborate scheme will come to fruition.
I got tired of this state of affairs today and put together a list based on what cards I already had, and my budget, but it was essentially Walker's list. Not only have I won a startling majority of my matches, I've had a blast with MTGO for the first time in a solid month. I thought I'd post my slightly different list as a sign of gratitude, and for any comments anyone wanted to make.
Creatures are exactly the same, with the difference of Zealous Guardian for Burrenton Forge-Tender, which is now in the sideboard.
Spells are basically the same (I've been having to run a mirror entity instead of one of the mirrorweaves, because I just haven't finished trading yet and got impatient) except I don't run the Rustic Clachan. Instead, I run 3 Crib Swaps and 3 Steel of Godhead. I find that the advantage of having an unblockable lifegainer makes a big difference.
I would run the mutavault if I had it. At the moment, it's just the windbrisk and the plains.
Finally, the side board is a little different because of needing to side in the Forge-Tender.
2x Ajani Goldmane 3x Brigid 3x Oblivion 3x Burrenton 4x Wispmare.
It even does ok against Little Kid GW if you side in the oblivions and wispmares for the crib swaps, militias, and two mirrorweaves.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. Keep up the good work.
As soon as you saw spectral processions p1p2 you should've been thinking GWr right then. p1p3 where you took Scumbags is an ok pick, but i think you commented on no other white spells in the pack, there is the little skulk (who is a complete badass) and the rune-cervin riders (which by looking at the hybrid mana symbol for its pump tells you that it could be very good in WG). Now to the worst pick of your entire draft, p1p4, you picked a hungry spriggan over a spawnwrithe. First off, i don't know how he made it past 3 other people.....understand that if spawny damages the opponent once, you should win the game, and there is plenty of ways to get him through the red zone in W/G.....turn to mist, barkshell, curse of chains, niveous wisp, somnomacer, silk bind(i know you didn't see this guy, but if you were W/G u could've played him). Game, set, match! You also screwed up on the first Howl of the Night Pack, Barkshell is an easy pick there, i think howl is the best of the corrupt cycle cards(not counting aromored ascension), but at 7 mana you need more than 2 druids to play it and even then, they weaken the spell (devoted druid anyways, farhaven helps it quite a bit).
Pack 2 you were already dead set against white so commenting doesn't do much, other than the white kept coming. Armored Ascension (awesome: it doesn't care what color the creature is, unlike the other god auras), aethertows (amazing), more white two drops, shields of the oversoul (u should've been playing these instead of passing them). You should also be valuing morselhoarder more too, could've easily splashed bolts and to get red for the spout.
Pack 3 by this time the deck is to far gone and you have completely drafted yourself out of the tourney, not trying to be mean, just critical.....i like all you guys here at mtgotraders. P3P1, you pick scumbags over more removal in mercy killing which maybe is a toss up. People don't like mercy killing but it is good, cuz it's removal, likely targets that don't hurt: silkbinds, witches, flyers and reachers(if you have fliers). Targets better being in the form of 1/1s: any of the HHHHH creatures, creatures enchanted with god auras(shield of the oversoul doesn't save it) Targets on your own creatures: any high power with your damage on the stack. You should see what that does for your drove of elves. Only other critical pick was the roughshod mentor over the scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt is awesome, it ramps to your 5 drops one turn early and gives you the splash option, and once again, shuts down that shield of the oversoul, or any other god aura. This is already too long, adios.
ImTheChamp (mtgo screen name)
This deck has WAY too many four and five drops. SSS is a fast format. You picked those Howl of the Night Packs way too high. The Blessings and Elvish Hexhunters would have been much better selections for your deck. You could have picked up two hexhunters, which due to all the enchantments, is a key card in this format.
Scar = GREAT Friggin spell. You passed two of them. They are removal, and persist screw, you should take them higher. Also I notice that Wisps aren't rated high enough yet on MTGO, these are great spells for messing with combat math. Shutting down someone's Liege effect or Aura on an attacking creature is pretty good I hear, and when it gets you a free card to boot, it will at worst thin your deck for you.
The other thing I noticed (and I may be wrong, as I haven't seen your other drafts) is that you seem to have it set in your mind that you should only draft the hybrids of your colours (R/G hybrids in this case) you should look closer at all hybrids you could reasonably play (B/R R/G G/W) in this case.
Thank you for your dedication to this work. It's thurough and easy to comprehend.
According to Solice, the server status widget on the MTGO homepage has been fixed. We'll have to wait and see how it handles this week's downtime I guess, but at the very least, the date/time is being updated. :)
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what the first half of your post said. The mana curve of what gets thrown out of whack? PDC? Do you mean the fundamental turn? Because right now, your post makes very little sense.
personally i just see the mana curve getting completely bent by doing this however keep the lands restricted and curve intact then allow one plating there's still more then enuf removal in the game to deal with it. (more ways to remove a single artifact then to remove a horde of tokens for example....)
Just so you know in some Peasant Magic tournaments artifact lands actually have been banned in addition to Sol Ring and Skullclamp, mostly in events that happen in Paris, France. Though for some reason they never banned Cranial Plating, so I guess it's a different approach to banning cards. I just thought you might want to know that since you mention the format in your article.
I always enjoy your column!
Singleton is the only thing i'm plaing right now on MTGO, especially 100 card singleton.
You should try to cover it next time, with some basic strategies for the format, like the proper number of cards and long-term strategies.
I've palyed vs that dredge deck about half an year ago, it smashed me (MUC)!Your list look like a good improvement, congratulations! Also loved the Kiki-Pester-Garrul deck from last article!
i think this mention of color resources brings up a good point, maybe affinity in the current meta would be less powerful than before, simply because more pilots would try to maximize the amount of artifact land greatly reducing the number of blue sources. I have tried playing around with all the arti-lands before and if you max out your manabase with them and someone focuses on taking out the blue sources, you are much more pressed not to just die a few turns in when you no longer have access for mana to draw cards. This may be a random way out there point and i have no real understanding but it seems to me like it may be a viable point.
While i am not actively playing now, i do think that now is as good of a time as any to take an action on Affinity and Artifact lands.
@Evu While i may not be as much as old timer as you, i do feel like that this issue has been talked about many times before. Each time a small group of players try to test decks against affinity. Both with Decks that are unprepared and decks that are prepared. The Past few times there has been a feeling that an unrestricted affinity (by that i mean a full compliment of Art lands) could potentially be safe to throw back into the meta.
What Hasn't been done is a live test of the deck. Put it in hands of the unskilled or new players. Put it in tournies where you don't know if that is the next deck around the corner or not. We can test in a control enviroment till we are blue in the face, but until its been put out there we do not know what will happen. I will only consider it adequate when it has shown up unrestricted a few times at CPDC
Spike mentioned that 14 sets have rolled into pauper classic since the decision has been made, every color has an answer to affinity. And other decks have become tuned enough that they can beat Affinity with a properly prepared (by prepared i do not mean have all of the anti-artifact cards in the board, but someone who has actually play tested a deck and know how to successfully pilot the deck)person.
SO in short. bring back the artifact lands and put them on a 30-90 day review. Cranial plating is still bad. Do it before tempest comes out so things are muddled up.
I like the idea of shaking things up and if we are going to do it, i would do it before tempest comes online.
Spike and I have discussed this issue in the past, but I'll post my thoughts here so they're public. It's possible that some of these are a change from opinions I've published before.
First, on principle I dislike the idea of having any banned cards in an eternal format. If we are going to relax the B&R list, I would rather restrict Cranial Plating before we unrestrict the artifact lands. Yes, it's an "I win" card, but so is turn-2 Myr Enforcer. At least with a restricted Plating you only have to worry about one copy of it.
Second, I think several of the cards on the list in point 1 don't belong. Trading 1-for-1 with a creature (or, more likely, a Welding Jar) on turn 4 doesn't address why Affinity wins. Some of those cards can't ever kill Enforcer or Behemoth.
Third, I don't think that there's anything wrong with the Pauper Classic format that needs fixing. With regard to Affinity in particular, I've played it a couple of times recently and found it to be in fine shape. That said, I think we can expect to have Lotus Petal by the end of this year, and that will provide a good opportunity for a re-examination of the B&R list. I'm in favor of postponing this whole discussion until then.
But I can tell you from experience that JMason is right: this discussion will never cease. No matter what we decide. Not that I don't understand why, but, from my old-timer's perspective, it's frustrating to hear people always wanting to "test" something that, in my mind, has already been adequately tested. How often is too often to shake up the banlist? If we try unrestricted Affinity now, then ban it again, how long before we repeat the cycle? A stable banlist has its own benefits that need to be weighed against whatever benefits we'll get from changing it.
Why do something like this which makes the B&R list even more convoluted? Also, I highly doubt unrestricting Citadel would do anything, since it would eat valuable colored mana sourcs.
-Alex
Personally I enjoy the fact of decently affordable decks showing back up the metagame, mainly gassy knoll and rdw. I understand the need to compete and has good cards but being a college student I like seeing affordable options that can do well outside of the normal metagame of Elves, Faeries, Lark, and R/G. I know the decks still arent cheap but lacks of Bitterblossoms and Mutavaults certainly lessen the amount of meals I have to give up in order to be competitive.
Just as reference if you ever saw me you would know I dont like skipping meals though buying playsets of those would make my pants like me better.
We're falling off-subject, but your post was a direct response to me, so I am going to respond to it:
I flatly reject the faulty logic that you can take away the player who had the BEST results with a top-tier deck and say that it's "[no better] than any other high-level deck." That's just a ridiculous, statistically unfounded way to evaluate decks. Take any solid, high-level deck and add in more wins than any other player has ever had with any single deck in history, and I bet you'd get something ridiculously dominant. MUC has had very few pilots. It's a hard deck to pilot. If it just happens that its ridiculous, utter dominance is highly concentrated due to those factors, it still doesn't make that dominance any less "real."
All six of the artifact lands are restricted, right? If so, why not start off by unrestricting Darksteel Citadel? It has a downside (colorless) that the other lands don't have, so I think a good argument could be made for not treating it like the other artifact lands. That would give three additional artifact lands to Affinity decks; not a huge improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Test the waters a bit, rather than just jumping head first into complete unrestriction.
Not your fault at all... I've been having an inordinate amount of foot-in-mouth disease lately. :p
PDC arguments about Affinity? There weren't a lot really. There was a lot of concern at the time regarding the health of PDC. You mentioned most of it. PDC was budding. Affinity was really strong and very 'unfun' because of its overwhelming power in comparison to the rest of the field. There was some cry to allow CoP: Artifacts but instead Affinity was neutered and pretty much everyone was okay with it. I recall a few vague people who wanted to give it more of a chance to be beaten, but by and large, the community backed the decision to tone it down.
But as you also mentioned, a lot has changed since then. There are more tools to fight an early Affinity hand, and more decks have more answers at their disposal than they did when Affinity got the smack down.
If it were a vote, I'd vote for Artifact lands to be unrestricted, and leave Cranial banned. Give it a full season of support and time to prove itself and to let the counter-strategies come after it. Maybe it's not that great anymore. Maybe it's better than ever. There really is only one way to find out though.