Aether Vial - Is it the next target to be banned?

[dark_knight_307]

Every Standard player remembers it (plus some too), it was obvious. In the months previous to the banning of Skullclamp, the card was popping up in playsets through almost every deck in the top 8s. The card was so powerful, it made any random deck into a powerhouse.

Now onto Aether Vial. What have you been noticing? I have seen that when a creature based deck adds a few Aether Vials here and there, it suddenly becomes a whole lot faster and all around competetive. The same thing that happened with Skullclamp. Is this a signal?

Are these signs telling us that Aether Vial will become as broken in the new extended as the Clampifyer was in Standard? Post your thoughts!

[haunting]

I'm not thinking it will get banned, I don't think it should. Not banning it will encourage a more different variety of decks as you've said. I think that can only be a good thing. skullclamp did something similar, but it also gave card advantage to an extreme.

[Rhino408]

Affinity does not have a threshold on the format. Where there is affinity there will be slide and wake and what not to battle it.

[Enakra]

The thing I hate most of Vial is that it can be activated anytime. So "meddling mage" in response to madness is really annoying. It forces me to SB Stifle, and only works a few times.

Infact it is abused with creatures with "comes into play" abilities. It is highly wanted by any aggro build. It gives them speed, perhaps if it read "It can only be activated anytime you could play a sorcery" It would not be as painful as it is right now.

IMO, It is OK with the extended environment (sp?) but still gives a lot of power to some decks, however it can be used by control decks as well. Which skullclamp didn't, we get that needle from SoK so there may be some room for them MD for me.

[Rhino408]

Although AEther Vial is powerful, it's what makes agro decks work in Ext(goblins + affinity) it's quite powerful, but not a ban worthy card because they want the most balanced format possible and killing agro makes it a control meta. Agro in ext means the reborn of Slide and Wake, 2 very popular decks consister of 4xWoGs a piece.

I'll be looking forward to Slide vs Affinity all over again.

[avery61]

Aether Vial helps Affinity and Goblins, but both decks would still be Tier 1 decks in the current enviroment without Vial, and some versions of Goblin decks don't run the vial.
I don't think Aether Vial should get the ban hammer pre or post rotation. The card is great but so is Witness, Meddling Mage, Wild Mongrel etc. Keep 'em all, and Extended will (IMO) continue to be the diverse enviroment it is now.

[Synergy_Man]

they wouldnt ban vial and if they did it would be a small little thing. nothing big and never worthy of ban.

[mafiamember]

they usually ban crazy powerful cards. Cards they ban usually ruin formats because they are too powerful. Aether vial isnt nowhere near powerful enough to get banned so it will be around

[Shinboi]

Yea its usually cards that are like who ever gets to it first or who has more of it for ex. Jitte. And also because it can't be used in every deck like rock for example.

[Jasno]

Affinity does not have a threshold on the format. Where there is affinity there will be slide and wake and what not to battle it.

I know slide wins against affinity, but how does Wake? Everything I've heard about Wake's affinity matchup has been extremely negative.

To get on-topic, I'd probably cry if they banned aether vial. I love the card. ;)