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Fixing a Broken Format


Please bear in mind as I write this article that its 100% theoretical.



Today I am going to discuss Global Escalation as a format, in short it is a format that has a few issues with it to say the least, so firstly were going to look at Wizkids definition of the format.

Global Escalation disallows cards that meet the following criteria:

1) It has made the Finals of one of the following events:
* Dice Masters World Championships 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
* Dice Masters US National Championships 2018, 2019
AND it doesn't have a Global Ability
2) Swords of Revealing Light, Relentless, and Cosmic Cube: Energy of the Beyonders are also disallowed, see the announcement here: https://wizkids.com/dicemasters/global-escalation/

So as we can see here it came with a banned list already in place, which is fair enough, its a format that wants to weed out the power cards to a certain extent and force you to adapt and conquer, but there is already an issue. Firstly it disallows cards that make the final table in either a Worlds event or a US Nat's event, and since they only remove cards from the finals of the main event, which is always a modern event, it means that card before the formats inception are ineligible for removal at any point.

Another issue is that cards with global's are somewhat untouchable, aside from Relentless and Swords of Revealing Light, two cards which have been banned from the start, no other global cards have been banned, it's a format that has almost become defined by the abuse of PXG amongst other things.

Now to see if we can solve the problems I have presented here.

Scenario 1
Remove cards from the pool that were released before the formats creation that stand no chance of being removed, including cards with global's, were talking essentially starting from where modern is at the moment and continuing from that point on wards, eliminating cards through the current method of tournament finishes. Furthermore look at national event finishes outside of the US and remove those cards too, keep an ever evolving meta, where people have to adapt once a cards been eliminated.

Scenario 2
Skip to the end. You can only use cards if they have a global, everything else is unusable.
this may seem a bit drastic but it feels like that's potentially where the format would go over extended periods of time, almost a natural ending point.
Again there will always be an issue of problem cards, and if the meta becomes stale then you address the situation with the ban hammer.

Scenario 3
Less drastic than other scenarios, and its simple, leave it as it currently is, and just get rid of PXG.

Would like to here other peoples thoughts, so drop a line in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe and follow.

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