I say it's too vague. It makes no mention of the conspiracy cards being banned. Keep mind all 25 conspiracy cards are on the vintage and legacy banned list. If we assume no banned list magic double stroke makes it possible. Now if you feel if that's in the spirit of the puzzle. That's an other question all together, but as written I don't see why they would be excluded.
I liked it because it prevented battle cruiser magic. I see that far to often in edh. However, the people managing the format well seemed questionable. Secondly, I think the 50 card deck killed it. I did not mind the the streamlined nature, but I know a lot people since it was a for fun format felt their decks or other peoples deck played to much the same.
You might be able to flip a box on the short term, but long term I don't see any recent boxes holding much value long term. You can get burned by reprints. So if you want a box that will go up some. Looks for something with a staple card you don't see being reprinted in a while. You also need to a buy a lot of boxes to make it worth it. However, there are probably some things better than boxes to put your money in.
I will say that command zone is part the official rules now. It's where plane-walker emblems are put. The challenge does not mention anything about banned lists. So if we assume there is no banned list. This is the the simplest solution I can think of.
So I would construct a deck that would consist of one Double Stroke name cyclonic rift. Also start the game at billion life then play islands each turn till I can cast cyclonic rift overloaded.
113.2. An effect that creates an emblem is written “[Player] gets an emblem with [ability].” This means that [player] puts an emblem with [ability] into the command zone. The emblem is both owned and controlled by that player.
It's nice that Opt is final modern legal. Although, I wish there was some scry 2 variant. Although considering ponder and preordain are sorceries. I doubt wizards will ever do that. However, who cares if green gets cards like ancient stirrings or oath of nissa, and blue does not.
I know what would help deal with big mana decks and greedy mana bases. It's the card Ruination, but it's not modern legal. I don't think it's too strong, but I doubt wizards would print this card again. Although it's slow against a turn three tron.
Artifact lands are never coming off the banned list. Ever. Apart from the fact each of them is a pseudo Ancient Tomb with affinity mechanic cards, they give an unhealthy power boost to current Affinity decks.
Think of what those cards do for ravager, plating, etched champion, galvanic blast and mox opal. Then think about master of etherium, myr enforcer and disciple of the vault. If you think all of those would be kept in check by a few more hate cards out of the board you are badly mistaken...
If you notice I discussed each color. For instance do you think affinity would use the green one? If they did they would swap out dark steel citadel. It's off color for what the deck wants. So it ends being the same. The white one also does not really help affinity. Where things start to get dicey is the black land. The red and blue land affinity would want and are probably are too risky.
I'm very sceptical of the Modern pt announcement. Given the history of those events it's more then likely they will mess something up with the banned list.
On the other hand if a skewed pt is what it takes to finally finish cleaning up the aftermath of Eldrazi Winter then so be it. I'm aware that E-Tron isn't the monstrosity we had last year but does it really have to be to prove the point that Eldrazi Temple is an unfair and unbalanced card? Even if by some weird logic Ancient Tomb is a fair card for Modern having it relegated to a single deck is far from fair.
It's better than ancient tomb for eldrazi. However, I would be sad to see an other card on the banned list. We really just need something close to wasteland perhaps costing one mana to use.
I would like too see the ban list shrink. So other than obvious cards people have been talking about (BBE, GSZ, SFM, Jace, Ponder, Preordain). I have been thinking about other cards. I don't see some of these happening as wizards tends be pretty conservative with unbanning cards.
Artifact Land Cycle (Verdict atleast 2, but perhaps 3)
Lets start off Tree of Tales. There is not really any thing that this one land would enable that is broken. Ancient Den, can see a little more play and maybe enable some cool cards like Tempered Steel or a white equipment deck. Vault of Whispers this does match up with cranial plating attach cost. So I am on the fence on this one, but maybe. However, Seat of the Synod and Great Furnace are the big players here. There are a lot of red and blue cards that interact with artifacts. The riskiest of these two would the seat, but I would put furnace not too far behind. However, there is no reason for the entire cycle to be on the ban list.
Gixtaxian Probe (Verdict: Yes)
I know this was just recently banned, and is unlikely to change. However, I still felt the reasoning was pretty weak, and will add this ban surprised me.
Chrome Mox (Verdict uncertain, but perhaps)
I will say Chrome mox seems to be in a weird spot. It might push some decks fast than we or wizards would want or it might not. However, we don't really have any data points on if it would be bad for the meta. Afinity really does not want it. You have to pitch a colored card. Storm would prefer to pitch a land, but it is not a mox diamond so it would have to pitch a can-trip or ritual. The only deck that worries me is Ad Nauseam, and I would rather just ban Ad nauseam. I did try proxing up some belcher lists and concluded that there is not enough fast mana to make it consistently explosive. I don't really see Chrome Mox breaking the meta though. I could be wrong. However, I see it more like Goryo's Vengeance, and would probably not push the meta in bad direction. However, the plus side is that other interesting brews could use potentially use it.
Punishing Fire (Verdict Probably Not)
I really like punishing jund in legacy. It would be cool to see that in modern, but I feel it might push creatures with less than 2 toughness out of the meta that don't have an immediate pay off. I am not sure we need more people playing tasigurs and gurmag anglers, and goyfs. It would also probably affect affinity quite a bit. However, graveyard hate dose stop the engine so I am hesitant to just say no. However, modern sadly does not have wasteland and that gives other decks in legacy a different avenue of interaction with punishing fire.
Glimpse of Nature. (Verdict probably too risky)
So wizards printed beck // call a few years ago. The card see marginal/fringe play at best in modern. Glimpse of Nature while being the same effect. (besides cast vs enter for the effect) I am not sure what deck it would go right into other than elves. Perhaps Cheerios, but they are pretty much a blue/red storm deck with a different engine. It would also loose a lot of the zero drops. They have to be creatures. So cards like Burning-tree emissary would be needed instead. Cheerios in legacy is not that great of a deck, and further we don't have as many cards like land grant and elvish spirit guide. Legacy cheerios also looses to it's self quite few times. So I guess it's probably not that large of a threat in cheerios. However, how big of a monster would elves become with glimpse? Especially with cards like pyroclasm being legal. However, Shaman of the Pack could be a problem then, and make it even more unlikely. Is there an other decks that I missing?
The only cards after these that I feel could also merit discussion are Umezawa's Jitte, Seething Song, Deathrite Shaman, Dig Through Time and redacted. Past that we start getting into cards that modern can't really deal with and probably never will have the tools to do so. I will say depending on how modern evolves we should hopefully be able trim the ban list down. The riskiest of the cards I mentioned in my opinion is probably glimpse, but I could be wrong. However, some these cards we just don't have great data for so it makes hard to really know.
~edit~ it's 2:00 am please bear with any typos, and lack of proof reading.
This is why I hate this rule. Your giving your deck to a potential cheater or some gorilla who tries to destroy your deck, and there's nothing you can do it's the rule. I get why we allow are opponent a cut but I don't get why they get to shuffle your deck. I would rather we have a 3 cut rule. You could cut your opponents deck up to 3 times but no Shuffling.
If I`m not mistaken, youre allowed to call a judge and ask him to shuffle your deck instead of your opponent, if you`re concerned about the way your opponent is shuffling.
You can ask the judge but he-she has the right to refuse and that makes the situation feel even more awkward . The problem I have is, I sb a card in and Shuffle my deck, then my opponent buries the card by looking while shuffling close to the bottom of my deck. How do I prove it? It's not the bottom card its just in the bottom portion of my deck. It becomes their word against your word. I have had this happen and nothing was done about it because in the end it's the judges call not your eyes. Why can't we get a cut after our opponent is done shuffling are deck?
I agree with an shuffling an opponent's deck, but being allowed to cut your own deck once returned would help stopping any cheating. It does not stop peeking, but the alternative is worse. However, I usually don't suspect cheating when someone shuffles my deck. Further, competitive and professional RELs require that an opponent to shuffle a presented deck.
I kept my eyes on my deck while I shuffled his deck (incidentally I will continue to shuffle 6 times more than whatever someone else does when they shuffle my deck. Yes, it's bitterness.
Also when shuffling my opponents deck I try shuffle a little less or the same as my opponent. However, if you intentionally are trying to shuffle longer than your opponent that could lead to some long shuffling. Especially, if the opponent was aiming for something similar.
Lastly, why the bitterness over shuffling? It is required for higher level RELS. Further, some people like to keep it a habit if they play at events so they don't get sloppy or just do it out of habit.
Chrome Mox enables a Modern Belcher deck. Trust me, you don't want that.
In what way? Belcher wasn't a thing in Modern even when we had more accelerants than we would have in the present format with an unbanned Chrome Mox. Heck, I don't think we'd see an actually competitive Belcher deck even if Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Chrome Mox were all unbanned.
Further, I am still surprised bloodbraid elf is banned, and main thought is that functions very similar to collected company. However, collected company is quite strong, and similar to birthing pod and just keeps getting better with new creatures. So I can understand why wizards could hesitant on blood-braid elf. I also honestly think collected collected company is stronger, and the main reason is you get to choose from the top 6 cards. Bloodbraid elf gives you no choice you could flip a removal spell on an empty board.
Stoneforge Mystic is a turn 3 batterskull game ending? No, but tron can drop some pretty game ending cards on turn 3. I can't see this being banned at the moment. I guess if I were wizard's part of my reason would involve limiting the design space for high CMC equipment cards. However, I don't see that as a good reason personally. Unless wizards has such a card in the works right now, I would say it being a problem would be years away.
Green Sun's Zenith, My only concern are the COCO decks, but they do have Chord of Calling and it can get any creature at instant speed. The fact it can only fetch green creatures makes it a lot weaker. Chord of Calling also can be quite mana efficient since it has convoke. Even more so after M15 allowing the colored part of the cards cost to be reduced. Oh let's also not forget summoner's pact which arguable more powerful for any all-in combo decks that needs to tutor a green creature, but it does not put it into play at least.
Chrome Mox, it sad this card has never been legal. The only deck I can think off the top my head that may worries me is Ad nauseam. Storm may use it. Also no affinity would not want this you have to exile a colored card to use it. It also see less play than other mana sources in legacy.
Legend said it perfectly about the balance of the urza lands.
Memory lapse made a good point too about what people think when they hear "tron" deck, I agree that I don't think of e.tron or mono U tron either even though they both use the tron lands. I played mono U for a long time and assembling tron isn't top priority,its much slower.
Would tron be so hated if it wasn't for turn 3 karn? For the most part I feel that's what the issue is, not the lands themselves. Ugin, ulamog, emmy, all these huge threats are turn four or more.
Ban Karn and the deck changes from a polarized nightmare to a perfectly fair deck.
End result of this thread = BAN KARN!
I'll do it with a concurrent ban of Liliana of the Veil. Sounds good right? (I already know your answer)
Why bring up Liliana? We aren't even talking about that. Spam.
No need to play coy, you know what I'm asking. Would you agree to ban both Karn and LotV at the same time? If Karn is too oppressive as a possible turn 3 play then why isn't Lily too oppressive at a DEFINITE turn 3 play? Simple question and definitely in the bounds of the thread. I'm genuinely curious. Remember I LIKE 8rack and all its variants and still play my 8Rackdos deck on certain occasions. I hate Affinity but I'm not calling for a ban of anything in it. Heck Black has answers to planes walkers as well as discard. Try finding an answer to planeswalkers in colorless and about the only real answer are 7 cmc cards. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on Karn and move on.
Give us a colorless stripmine
Its called Ghost Quarter. If Strip Mine was in Modern every deck under the Sun would probably run a full playset. I'm going to have to leave it at that, I don't feel like getting worked up about it. See ya' around the boards.
Squee's Embrace I have always loved this card. The art is done by Rebecca Guay and its one of the few cards with art of an actual hug/embrace. It buffs your creature and gives them squee's ability in a way making it harder too get 2 for oned by your opponent. Oh did I also mention it references Squee?
So I would construct a deck that would consist of one Double Stroke name cyclonic rift. Also start the game at billion life then play islands each turn till I can cast cyclonic rift overloaded.
If you notice I discussed each color. For instance do you think affinity would use the green one? If they did they would swap out dark steel citadel. It's off color for what the deck wants. So it ends being the same. The white one also does not really help affinity. Where things start to get dicey is the black land. The red and blue land affinity would want and are probably are too risky.
It's better than ancient tomb for eldrazi. However, I would be sad to see an other card on the banned list. We really just need something close to wasteland perhaps costing one mana to use.
Artifact Land Cycle (Verdict atleast 2, but perhaps 3)
Lets start off Tree of Tales. There is not really any thing that this one land would enable that is broken. Ancient Den, can see a little more play and maybe enable some cool cards like Tempered Steel or a white equipment deck. Vault of Whispers this does match up with cranial plating attach cost. So I am on the fence on this one, but maybe. However, Seat of the Synod and Great Furnace are the big players here. There are a lot of red and blue cards that interact with artifacts. The riskiest of these two would the seat, but I would put furnace not too far behind. However, there is no reason for the entire cycle to be on the ban list.
Gixtaxian Probe (Verdict: Yes)
I know this was just recently banned, and is unlikely to change. However, I still felt the reasoning was pretty weak, and will add this ban surprised me.
Chrome Mox (Verdict uncertain, but perhaps)
I will say Chrome mox seems to be in a weird spot. It might push some decks fast than we or wizards would want or it might not. However, we don't really have any data points on if it would be bad for the meta. Afinity really does not want it. You have to pitch a colored card. Storm would prefer to pitch a land, but it is not a mox diamond so it would have to pitch a can-trip or ritual. The only deck that worries me is Ad Nauseam, and I would rather just ban Ad nauseam. I did try proxing up some belcher lists and concluded that there is not enough fast mana to make it consistently explosive. I don't really see Chrome Mox breaking the meta though. I could be wrong. However, I see it more like Goryo's Vengeance, and would probably not push the meta in bad direction. However, the plus side is that other interesting brews could use potentially use it.
Punishing Fire (Verdict Probably Not)
I really like punishing jund in legacy. It would be cool to see that in modern, but I feel it might push creatures with less than 2 toughness out of the meta that don't have an immediate pay off. I am not sure we need more people playing tasigurs and gurmag anglers, and goyfs. It would also probably affect affinity quite a bit. However, graveyard hate dose stop the engine so I am hesitant to just say no. However, modern sadly does not have wasteland and that gives other decks in legacy a different avenue of interaction with punishing fire.
Glimpse of Nature. (Verdict probably too risky)
So wizards printed beck // call a few years ago. The card see marginal/fringe play at best in modern. Glimpse of Nature while being the same effect. (besides cast vs enter for the effect) I am not sure what deck it would go right into other than elves. Perhaps Cheerios, but they are pretty much a blue/red storm deck with a different engine. It would also loose a lot of the zero drops. They have to be creatures. So cards like Burning-tree emissary would be needed instead. Cheerios in legacy is not that great of a deck, and further we don't have as many cards like land grant and elvish spirit guide. Legacy cheerios also looses to it's self quite few times. So I guess it's probably not that large of a threat in cheerios. However, how big of a monster would elves become with glimpse? Especially with cards like pyroclasm being legal. However, Shaman of the Pack could be a problem then, and make it even more unlikely. Is there an other decks that I missing?
The only cards after these that I feel could also merit discussion are Umezawa's Jitte, Seething Song, Deathrite Shaman, Dig Through Time and
redacted. Past that we start getting into cards that modern can't really deal with and probably never will have the tools to do so. I will say depending on how modern evolves we should hopefully be able trim the ban list down. The riskiest of the cards I mentioned in my opinion is probably glimpse, but I could be wrong. However, some these cards we just don't have great data for so it makes hard to really know.~edit~ it's 2:00 am please bear with any typos, and lack of proof reading.
I agree with an shuffling an opponent's deck, but being allowed to cut your own deck once returned would help stopping any cheating. It does not stop peeking, but the alternative is worse. However, I usually don't suspect cheating when someone shuffles my deck. Further, competitive and professional RELs require that an opponent to shuffle a presented deck.
Also when shuffling my opponents deck I try shuffle a little less or the same as my opponent. However, if you intentionally are trying to shuffle longer than your opponent that could lead to some long shuffling. Especially, if the opponent was aiming for something similar.
Lastly, why the bitterness over shuffling? It is required for higher level RELS. Further, some people like to keep it a habit if they play at events so they don't get sloppy or just do it out of habit.
It makes wonder if the people making decisions even knows Goodhart’s law is, and how to properly account for using metrics like that.
I don't think it would be that great though. Especially, without elvish spirit guide, Lotus petal, Lions Eye Diamond and Land Grant. Thoughtseize also is pretty brutal or a counter spell even if it's a remand.
I don't think chrom mox would put elf belch
Further, I am still surprised bloodbraid elf is banned, and main thought is that functions very similar to collected company. However, collected company is quite strong, and similar to birthing pod and just keeps getting better with new creatures. So I can understand why wizards could hesitant on blood-braid elf. I also honestly think collected collected company is stronger, and the main reason is you get to choose from the top 6 cards. Bloodbraid elf gives you no choice you could flip a removal spell on an empty board.
Stoneforge Mystic is a turn 3 batterskull game ending? No, but tron can drop some pretty game ending cards on turn 3. I can't see this being banned at the moment. I guess if I were wizard's part of my reason would involve limiting the design space for high CMC equipment cards. However, I don't see that as a good reason personally. Unless wizards has such a card in the works right now, I would say it being a problem would be years away.
Ponder, and Preordain really? Especially, since green has cards like ancient stirrings, and Traverse the ulvenwald, Oath of Nissa
More Risky Cards
Green Sun's Zenith, My only concern are the COCO decks, but they do have Chord of Calling and it can get any creature at instant speed. The fact it can only fetch green creatures makes it a lot weaker. Chord of Calling also can be quite mana efficient since it has convoke. Even more so after M15 allowing the colored part of the cards cost to be reduced. Oh let's also not forget summoner's pact which arguable more powerful for any all-in combo decks that needs to tutor a green creature, but it does not put it into play at least.
Chrome Mox, it sad this card has never been legal. The only deck I can think off the top my head that may worries me is Ad nauseam. Storm may use it. Also no affinity would not want this you have to exile a colored card to use it. It also see less play than other mana sources in legacy.
I would hardly call Liliana oppressive.