u/w/r delver was at one point possibly the best deck in the format. it was the best tempo deck. it was fast enough to race tron, ran enough disruption to stop combo, and had enough removal to fight pure aggro.
then they went and printed something that was uncounterable removal, so they could no longer protect their delver/lynx, printed something that negated all the value snapcaster had in the deck, as flashing back a bolt or helix got so much value, and that also powered out a liliana before some counters could come online.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
Tempo's plan is to stick 1 or 2 guys and ride them to victory while protecting them. Abrupt Decay completely blows up their ability to protect them with countermagic. It's not so much that Abrupt Decay is overpowered (it isn't) but that its presence in the metagame is very bad for Delver if Jund is turning out in high #s.
You have to remember what Wotc has said about the format and what they (Wotc) have said they want from the format. They have said the dont want Modern thought of as Legacy lite. They want a certain power level that doesnt match Legacy or Standard.
Could you provide the source to justify that statement? I've seen that claim be repeated many times, but I haven't seen you or anyone else substantiate it. The closest I've found to any statement on where Modern 'fits' in the lineup of supported formats is the following:
Quote from Tom LaPille in "A Modern Proposal" »
As I said, many of you have called for a non-rotating format that doesn't have the card availability problems of Legacy. We propose Modern as that format.
This represents only a proposal and an experiment. Self-contained events like the Community Cup are a perfect way for us to get data about potential new formats; by running Modern at the Community Cup, we will be able to get some data about what the format looks like, and we will be able to judge what you, the public, think about it. For now, that is our only goal.
Some of you have speculated about what we plan to do with the format, and have wondered in various forums whether it may be a replacement for some other format we currently support. We haven't gotten that far. We could just add this to our stable of formats, as it fills a role that no other format does. I don't think any of us know what, if anything, will happen in the future with it.
However, although this is only an experiment, we put a lot of thought into the decisions we made about the format. Of all the potential non-rotating formats we could have chosen, we like this one the best.
The closest indirect statement they've made (as far as I am aware of) came in the first update to the banned list, just after it was announced that PT Philly would be switched from Extended to Modern. The statement I am referring to is found here:
Quote from Tom LaPille in "Welcome to the Modern World" »
Our second criterion [the first being the 'turn 4 rule'] was that any deck that dominated a seven-year or four-year Extended format that only included Modern-legal sets had the danger of being crushingly powerful in Modern. There are also a few Legacy decks that can be easily ported into Modern that had a similar potential. If we left them all intact, those would likely be the best decks; if we left only one intact, it would probably be the single best one. SOURCE
This implies that after banning all the degenerate combos, decks that port from Legacy or Extended into Modern with minimal changes run the danger of being so popular they suffocate everything else. The problem here is that we've seen the Modern-legal B/G Rock shell that underpins both Jund, and to a lesser extent BUG Tempo, finish strongly in both Modern and Legacy events. The crux of the current discussion, is whether or not any of the cards in the Modern Jund shell should be banned because they represent the same cross-format effectiveness that is cited in the bannings of Jace, SFM, AV, and BB.
I dont ever expect Wotc to unban Jace 2.0, SFM or sword of the meek.
That's why there's a second level of intrigue in this discussion - all of the cards in the Modern B/G Rock shell are fundamentally 'fair' (e.g. aren't violating the Turn 4 Rule, warping the metagame, suppressing entire archetypes, or creating negative externalities). This calls into question the validity of Wizards' approach to the banned list in respect to cross-format effectiveness. Throwing out the cross-format rule as nonsense disproved by Jund opens the door to unbanning the U/W goodstuff like Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and AV. The bottom line is that WotC is now faced with a dilemma - either admit that Jund violates the cross-format rule and ban most of the G/B goodstuff in the format like they did with U/W, or admit that the cross-format rule is not valid and unban the cards that were banned under that rule in the "Modern World" banning announcement (not all at once, but over the next few announcements)
That all said, and if they follow through with what they have said, its got to be 1 every time. I expect 1. If they are going to unban a cantrip it will be prordain, not ponder. Ponder restricted in Vintage, preordain is not. That alone should say volumes about how WotC feels about the power level of those 2 cards.
I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be only 1-card changes from now on. WotC has never publicly stated that 1-card changes will be the policy. In fact, each of the previous announcements except the most recent featured multiple changes. Therefore, if any changes do take place, its more likely (historically speaking) that there will be multiple changes rather than just one.
Also, I'm not sure why anyone would expect Vintage to have any bearing whatsoever on Modern. Legacy and Vintage have a much larger overlap in card pool, yet the entire reason Legacy came into being was because the B/R list in Type 1 and 1.5 needed to be decoupled. If we went by the logic that anything good enough to be restricted in Vintage is automatically ban-worthy in all less inclusive formats, then we'd be looking at big changes to Legacy. For example, Brainstorm, Ponder, Gifts Ungiven, Thirst for Knowledge, LED, Lotus Petal, Imperial Seal, Merchant Scroll, and Trinisphere would all have to be banned in Legacy. None of those bannings would make sense for Legacy. Going back to the 'old way' would be a step backwards in Legacy, so it stands to reason that it would likewise be a step backwards in Modern if WotC tried to recouple the banned lists.
That's why there's a second level of intrigue in this discussion - all of the cards in the Modern B/G Rock shell are fundamentally 'fair' (e.g. aren't violating the Turn 4 Rule, warping the metagame, suppressing entire archetypes, or creating negative externalities). This calls into question the validity of Wizards' approach to the banned list in respect to cross-format effectiveness. Throwing out the cross-format rule as nonsense disproved by Jund opens the door to unbanning the U/W goodstuff like Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and AV. The bottom line is that WotC is now faced with a dilemma - either admit that Jund violates the cross-format rule and ban most of the G/B goodstuff in the format like they did with U/W, or admit that the cross-format rule is not valid and unban the cards that were banned under that rule in the "Modern World" banning announcement (not all at once, but over the next few announcements)
I would not expect Wotc to start unbanning multiple, powerful cards it this stage in the format. If they feel Jund is a problem (which I believe they can see now) they will ban something from Jund, not unban anything. The fact the main shell of a Modern deck was transported directly into a more powerful format and competed, means to me Jund is going to get something banned. Since MM is already in production I would say what ever they ban will be from Zen to now.
As for a source, I believe it was said in one of the live interviews with Aaron or a twitter feed. It may have been said in person at Chicago. I truly dont remember.
Also, I'm not sure why anyone would expect Vintage to have any bearing whatsoever on Modern.
Did you not read what I wrote, The fact ponder is restricted in Vintage and preordain is not, shows how Wotc feels about ponder. Thats huge. They understand ponder is a 'better' cantrip then preordain and players can do more with it. I have said from the time they banned both, all they needed to ban was ponder, not preordain.
I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be only 1-card changes from now on.
I never said anything about single card changes, you gave 2 choices, 1 and 2 and I was choosing 1.
The problem here is that we've seen the Modern-legal B/G Rock shell that underpins both Jund, and to a lesser extent BUG Tempo, finish strongly in both Modern and Legacy events. The crux of the current discussion, is whether or not any of the cards in the Modern Jund shell should be banned because they represent the same cross-format effectiveness that is cited in the bannings of Jace, SFM, AV, and BB.
The bottom line is that WotC is now faced with a dilemma - either admit that Jund violates the cross-format rule and ban most of the G/B goodstuff in the format like they did with U/W, or admit that the cross-format rule is not valid and unban the cards that were banned under that rule in the "Modern World" banning announcement (not all at once, but over the next few announcements)
+1.
I went through the two Top 8 Jund decklists from GP Denver, and they are extremely similar to Modern ones, barring the mana base. In the Deck Tech section, Pat Cox had this gem: "I think the Black Green shell that makes up the core of BUG is the most powerful thing that you can do in Legacy right now."
Modern is just 3 Hymn to Tourach and 1 Sylvan Library away from that shell.
The cross-format rule was also used to justify artifact lands getting banned, so I'd rather they banned something from Jund instead of letting Jund + Caw + Affinity fight it out among themselves.
In other news, crazy nitwits playing dress-up have also convicted the Hamburglar, the Cookie Crisp Crook, and the Frito Bandito of sundry snack-related thefts.
Seriously, what about this strikes you as remotely worthy of discussion?
DRS is not a powerfull advantage card like bob or BBE he only deal with graveyard cards if there is any he is useless.
BBE and bob is more a fair ban than DRS.
Zoo players will get the axe again if they ban BBE because new friends for zoo is not allowed hehehe..
But there is a reason to ban something because both legacy and modern jund deck looks exacly the same almost the same power level and i think they dislike it.
i hope they dont do nothing and unban bitterblossom before MM comes, to print it if they ponderate unban it.
DRS is very overpowered.
As much as i hate to say it, he's busted. In the 4 months since the release of DRS in Legacy, he's become a staple in the 4 BUG decks, Eva Green, Combo Elves, Junk, BWg Stoneblade (yes they added green for DRS) and there are probably a couple I'm forgetting.
DRS is played more than SFM, Bob, and Snapcaster, and DRS is typically played as a full playset.
DRS is format warping, I think he is the best 1 drop in Magic. No other card can do all the things that DRS does at any mana cost.
Someone else brought up this point, and I beleive it is still very vaild. I will agree that DRS is stupid powerful. So powerful I actually HATE playing him. It makes me feel like crap because I just gained such an advantage and my birds and nobles are stareing at me from my stash of modern playables because they are saying "Remember when we used to be good enough?"
However... DRS is driving sales. Its making Wizards money. Just like snapcaster before him... and jace before that. I think they are unlikely to ban him on that reason, at least not for a year. Jace and Stoneforge were much more oppressive then he was in standard, but they kept em people they were afraid of a hard reaction and to hurt sales. Modern has both of those. because:
1. Banning a card would bring back the rep that modern bans all good decks.
2. Hurting modern would cut sales of modern masters
3. Banning DRS would hurt current sales of boxes/set/draft
4. They have said (or almost said) with Snapcaster, they would rather print answers then ban a popular card right out the gate.
DRS isn't really driving sales- it's still considered underpriced and a spec target, even at its current price of 11/12 dollars. It's a card that's quickly revealing itself to be a format-warping mistake. In legacy it's what they feared Wild Nacatl would become in Modern.
as one of their primary reasons for modern was to make it more accessible, they may also just ban tarmogoyf to slow jund down a bit, and make it a couple hundred dollars cheaper :l.
i'd prefer a drs ban, but don't think they'll ban deathrite shaman, as he's a "cool" "interactive" card that they made :l.
banning bloodbraid elf isn't out of the question though
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as one of their primary reasons for modern was to make it more accessible, they may also just ban tarmogoyf to slow jund down a bit, and make it a couple hundred dollars cheaper :l.
i'd prefer a drs ban, but don't think they'll ban deathrite shaman, as he's a "cool" "interactive" card that they made :l.
banning bloodbraid elf isn't out of the question though
I thought they should have axed Goyf before the format even started.
DRS is very good but they shoudn't ban him.. if he is that good.. instead of banning we should get other cards that are as much good as he is.
problem is that jund is kinda bonkers right now. It's got a tonne of positive matchups, and the few that are negative "ehhh" negative as a pose to "omgkillmyself" negative :l
so wizards is probably going to ban something
I thought they should have axed Goyf before the format even started.
yeaaah, i always thought it didn't make sense how they were going on about legacy ports into modern then let the most powerful beater in legacy into modern... maybe they didn't expect it to be as good? or for aggro decks to need a little help?
on another note, what's this about speculation for a jace 2 unbanning? i'm kinda nooby in modern, but it seems like jace 2 would be completely bonkers in this format
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Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
can you imagine the fury if they made a blue card the power level of shaman? the reaction to him right now is so lax compared to snapcaster/delver last standard season.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
DRS is very good but they shoudn't ban him.. if he is that good.. instead of banning we should get other cards that are as much good as he is.
Yeah sure they could make a whole series of busted 1 drops. How about a hybrid UW
Busted Azorius Shaman
Tap: exile the top card of target library and draw a card
U: Tap exile the top card of target library, counter non creature spell unless it controller pays 2 more mana
W: Tap gain 2 life, and exile target creature that creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
1/2
Seriously DRS is one of those cards that a new player to magic would design and every one would beat up on him for making such a busted card
can you imagine the fury if they made a blue card the power level of shaman? the reaction to him right now is so lax compared to snapcaster/delver last standard season.
It's because the only format he's currently running over is Legacy, and his effect in Modern is more subtle since people have been slow to catch onto the card. They don't test eternal formats (please don't get into a semantics war) and he's perfectly fine in T2, but in older formats the fetchlands make him possibly the best one-drop in the game's history. He's fine design-wise, the tuning is just horribly off.
I've said it for a long time, DRS is the main card that put Jund over the top, with decay playing a smaller role in making Jund very hard to hate out.
An unchecked shaman will deal upwards of 8-10 damage minimum, while also hating out your opponent's graveyard-based strategies. By nature, it's a 1 drop that HAS to be answered. In Jund, you previously would be using your removal for Goyf and Confidant. Now you have to answer a turn 1 creature as well as their goyfs and confidants, leaving your removal much more tightly constricted. And by the way, you also still have to deal with BBE and Liliana before hoping to stabilize.
The other problem shaman gives is that it provides mana fixing for Jund while also accelerating into turn 2 Liliana, Lingering Souls, or some other problematic 3 drop. Previously, this wasn't possible since bloodbraid elf didn't want to cascade into crappy cards, but now that there is cascadeable mana dork, it gives jund a crazy powerful curve that's efficient and has card advantage at every step along the way.
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An unchecked shaman will deal upwards of 8-10 damage minimum, while also hating out your opponent's graveyard-based strategies. By nature, it's a 1 drop that HAS to be answered. In Jund, you previously would be using your removal for Goyf and Confidant. Now you have to answer a turn 1 creature as well as their goyfs and confidants, leaving your removal much more tightly constricted. And by the way, you also still have to deal with BBE and Liliana before hoping to stabilize.
The other problem shaman gives is that it provides mana fixing for Jund while also accelerating into turn 2 Liliana, Lingering Souls, or some other problematic 3 drop. Previously, this wasn't possible since bloodbraid elf didn't want to cascade into crappy cards, but now that there is cascadeable mana dork, it gives jund a crazy powerful curve that's efficient and has card advantage at every step along the way.
In addition, you often have to deal with all this after being thoughtseized on turn 1.
they will not ban DRS because card is selling boosters and thats makes me remember when survival got the axe in legacy because vengevine was selling booster and milk money for them.
no way they will ban DRS in modern even knowing he is heavily played in legacy he is the new jittle with a good anti graveyard ability
DRS is strong but better than that it did something amazing because killed all graveyard based decks we must thak him for that for me bob should take the axe
Willy Edel won GP with running only 2 copies of bob in his list, choosing to add 2 Lotus Cobra for even more acceleration and mana fixing to be faster than the other Jund decks and to race combo. Jund is totally fine without bobs.
I've said it for a long time, DRS is the main card that put Jund over the top, with decay playing a smaller role in making Jund very hard to hate out.
An unchecked shaman will deal upwards of 8-10 damage minimum, while also hating out your opponent's graveyard-based strategies. By nature, it's a 1 drop that HAS to be answered. In Jund, you previously would be using your removal for Goyf and Confidant. Now you have to answer a turn 1 creature as well as their goyfs and confidants, leaving your removal much more tightly constricted. And by the way, you also still have to deal with BBE and Liliana before hoping to stabilize.
The other problem shaman gives is that it provides mana fixing for Jund while also accelerating into turn 2 Liliana, Lingering Souls, or some other problematic 3 drop. Previously, this wasn't possible since bloodbraid elf didn't want to cascade into crappy cards, but now that there is cascadeable mana dork, it gives jund a crazy powerful curve that's efficient and has card advantage at every step along the way.
My only issue with this is that DRS in modern is not broken in anything other than jund. Its a good card that several decks can use. If being able to cast turn 2 liliana is a problem ban her. Or ban dark confidant, or goyf, or bloodbraid elf. Destroy the whole jund deck for all I care, but let zoo and traditional rock decks has DRS.
Willy Edel won GP with running only 2 copies of bob in his list, choosing to add 2 Lotus Cobra for even more acceleration and mana fixing to be faster than the other Jund decks and to race combo. Jund is totally fine without bobs.
Edel's version of jund was highly meta gamed to beat spirit jund. Bob is just about the worst creature in the mirror, while lotus cobra may have been unassuming enough to score him a few wins by having 5-6 mana on turn 3.Typically the way to beat jund is to be just as disruptive and go bigger than they do.
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"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
So, Wafo Tapa's 4 color teachings deck is so close to being an upper tier true control deck. I wish we could get one of just about any blue card off that list to make this thing a true contender in the current metagame.
That being said, I do really think we're going to be able to play 4 Bitterblossoms very soon. I know the card has a stigma around it, but without Ancestral Vision, Mental Misstep, OR Umezewa's Jitte, I don't think Faeries has too much of a shot at being anything more than just another deck.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
It was played in the Superfriends list from Toronto too, I guess. Still, it hasn't seen widespread use in the format.
It was tier 1 for months. In particular, between Punishing Fire ban and the printing of RTR, but RWU and RUG Delver did quite well.
And yes, I am quite aware Decay is uncounterable. It is still just a one-for-one kill spell, and it doesn't help against Geist of Saint Traft.
I think something like this? This is the only successful decklist I've found so far
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=51856
then they went and printed something that was uncounterable removal, so they could no longer protect their delver/lynx, printed something that negated all the value snapcaster had in the deck, as flashing back a bolt or helix got so much value, and that also powered out a liliana before some counters could come online.
The Titan list won the first MODO PTQ.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Could you provide the source to justify that statement? I've seen that claim be repeated many times, but I haven't seen you or anyone else substantiate it. The closest I've found to any statement on where Modern 'fits' in the lineup of supported formats is the following:
The closest indirect statement they've made (as far as I am aware of) came in the first update to the banned list, just after it was announced that PT Philly would be switched from Extended to Modern. The statement I am referring to is found here:
This implies that after banning all the degenerate combos, decks that port from Legacy or Extended into Modern with minimal changes run the danger of being so popular they suffocate everything else. The problem here is that we've seen the Modern-legal B/G Rock shell that underpins both Jund, and to a lesser extent BUG Tempo, finish strongly in both Modern and Legacy events. The crux of the current discussion, is whether or not any of the cards in the Modern Jund shell should be banned because they represent the same cross-format effectiveness that is cited in the bannings of Jace, SFM, AV, and BB.
That's why there's a second level of intrigue in this discussion - all of the cards in the Modern B/G Rock shell are fundamentally 'fair' (e.g. aren't violating the Turn 4 Rule, warping the metagame, suppressing entire archetypes, or creating negative externalities). This calls into question the validity of Wizards' approach to the banned list in respect to cross-format effectiveness. Throwing out the cross-format rule as nonsense disproved by Jund opens the door to unbanning the U/W goodstuff like Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and AV. The bottom line is that WotC is now faced with a dilemma - either admit that Jund violates the cross-format rule and ban most of the G/B goodstuff in the format like they did with U/W, or admit that the cross-format rule is not valid and unban the cards that were banned under that rule in the "Modern World" banning announcement (not all at once, but over the next few announcements)
I'm not sure why anyone would expect there to be only 1-card changes from now on. WotC has never publicly stated that 1-card changes will be the policy. In fact, each of the previous announcements except the most recent featured multiple changes. Therefore, if any changes do take place, its more likely (historically speaking) that there will be multiple changes rather than just one.
Also, I'm not sure why anyone would expect Vintage to have any bearing whatsoever on Modern. Legacy and Vintage have a much larger overlap in card pool, yet the entire reason Legacy came into being was because the B/R list in Type 1 and 1.5 needed to be decoupled. If we went by the logic that anything good enough to be restricted in Vintage is automatically ban-worthy in all less inclusive formats, then we'd be looking at big changes to Legacy. For example, Brainstorm, Ponder, Gifts Ungiven, Thirst for Knowledge, LED, Lotus Petal, Imperial Seal, Merchant Scroll, and Trinisphere would all have to be banned in Legacy. None of those bannings would make sense for Legacy. Going back to the 'old way' would be a step backwards in Legacy, so it stands to reason that it would likewise be a step backwards in Modern if WotC tried to recouple the banned lists.
Speculate less. Test more.
I would not expect Wotc to start unbanning multiple, powerful cards it this stage in the format. If they feel Jund is a problem (which I believe they can see now) they will ban something from Jund, not unban anything. The fact the main shell of a Modern deck was transported directly into a more powerful format and competed, means to me Jund is going to get something banned. Since MM is already in production I would say what ever they ban will be from Zen to now.
As for a source, I believe it was said in one of the live interviews with Aaron or a twitter feed. It may have been said in person at Chicago. I truly dont remember.
Did you not read what I wrote, The fact ponder is restricted in Vintage and preordain is not, shows how Wotc feels about ponder. Thats huge. They understand ponder is a 'better' cantrip then preordain and players can do more with it. I have said from the time they banned both, all they needed to ban was ponder, not preordain.
I never said anything about single card changes, you gave 2 choices, 1 and 2 and I was choosing 1.
+1.
I went through the two Top 8 Jund decklists from GP Denver, and they are extremely similar to Modern ones, barring the mana base. In the Deck Tech section, Pat Cox had this gem:
"I think the Black Green shell that makes up the core of BUG is the most powerful thing that you can do in Legacy right now."
Modern is just 3 Hymn to Tourach and 1 Sylvan Library away from that shell.
The cross-format rule was also used to justify artifact lands getting banned, so I'd rather they banned something from Jund instead of letting Jund + Caw + Affinity fight it out among themselves.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
BW(G) Junkblade - Legacy
BW Vial Deadguy - Legacy
UWR Geist - Modern
UR(B) Delver - Modern
W(G) Death & Taxes - Modern
Oona, Queen of the Fae - EDH
DRS is very overpowered.
As much as i hate to say it, he's busted. In the 4 months since the release of DRS in Legacy, he's become a staple in the 4 BUG decks, Eva Green, Combo Elves, Junk, BWg Stoneblade (yes they added green for DRS) and there are probably a couple I'm forgetting.
DRS is played more than SFM, Bob, and Snapcaster, and DRS is typically played as a full playset.
DRS is format warping, I think he is the best 1 drop in Magic. No other card can do all the things that DRS does at any mana cost.
However... DRS is driving sales. Its making Wizards money. Just like snapcaster before him... and jace before that. I think they are unlikely to ban him on that reason, at least not for a year. Jace and Stoneforge were much more oppressive then he was in standard, but they kept em people they were afraid of a hard reaction and to hurt sales. Modern has both of those. because:
1. Banning a card would bring back the rep that modern bans all good decks.
2. Hurting modern would cut sales of modern masters
3. Banning DRS would hurt current sales of boxes/set/draft
4. They have said (or almost said) with Snapcaster, they would rather print answers then ban a popular card right out the gate.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
i'd prefer a drs ban, but don't think they'll ban deathrite shaman, as he's a "cool" "interactive" card that they made :l.
banning bloodbraid elf isn't out of the question though
UWUW ControlUW
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WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
I thought they should have axed Goyf before the format even started.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
problem is that jund is kinda bonkers right now. It's got a tonne of positive matchups, and the few that are negative "ehhh" negative as a pose to "omgkillmyself" negative :l
so wizards is probably going to ban something
yeaaah, i always thought it didn't make sense how they were going on about legacy ports into modern then let the most powerful beater in legacy into modern... maybe they didn't expect it to be as good? or for aggro decks to need a little help?
on another note, what's this about speculation for a jace 2 unbanning? i'm kinda nooby in modern, but it seems like jace 2 would be completely bonkers in this format
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Yeah sure they could make a whole series of busted 1 drops. How about a hybrid UW
Busted Azorius Shaman
Tap: exile the top card of target library and draw a card
U: Tap exile the top card of target library, counter non creature spell unless it controller pays 2 more mana
W: Tap gain 2 life, and exile target creature that creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
1/2
Seriously DRS is one of those cards that a new player to magic would design and every one would beat up on him for making such a busted card
It's because the only format he's currently running over is Legacy, and his effect in Modern is more subtle since people have been slow to catch onto the card. They don't test eternal formats (please don't get into a semantics war) and he's perfectly fine in T2, but in older formats the fetchlands make him possibly the best one-drop in the game's history. He's fine design-wise, the tuning is just horribly off.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
An unchecked shaman will deal upwards of 8-10 damage minimum, while also hating out your opponent's graveyard-based strategies. By nature, it's a 1 drop that HAS to be answered. In Jund, you previously would be using your removal for Goyf and Confidant. Now you have to answer a turn 1 creature as well as their goyfs and confidants, leaving your removal much more tightly constricted. And by the way, you also still have to deal with BBE and Liliana before hoping to stabilize.
The other problem shaman gives is that it provides mana fixing for Jund while also accelerating into turn 2 Liliana, Lingering Souls, or some other problematic 3 drop. Previously, this wasn't possible since bloodbraid elf didn't want to cascade into crappy cards, but now that there is cascadeable mana dork, it gives jund a crazy powerful curve that's efficient and has card advantage at every step along the way.
In addition, you often have to deal with all this after being thoughtseized on turn 1.
Willy Edel won GP with running only 2 copies of bob in his list, choosing to add 2 Lotus Cobra for even more acceleration and mana fixing to be faster than the other Jund decks and to race combo. Jund is totally fine without bobs.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
My only issue with this is that DRS in modern is not broken in anything other than jund. Its a good card that several decks can use. If being able to cast turn 2 liliana is a problem ban her. Or ban dark confidant, or goyf, or bloodbraid elf. Destroy the whole jund deck for all I care, but let zoo and traditional rock decks has DRS.
Edel's version of jund was highly meta gamed to beat spirit jund. Bob is just about the worst creature in the mirror, while lotus cobra may have been unassuming enough to score him a few wins by having 5-6 mana on turn 3.Typically the way to beat jund is to be just as disruptive and go bigger than they do.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson's letter to John Adams, April 11 1823
That being said, I do really think we're going to be able to play 4 Bitterblossoms very soon. I know the card has a stigma around it, but without Ancestral Vision, Mental Misstep, OR Umezewa's Jitte, I don't think Faeries has too much of a shot at being anything more than just another deck.
On a serious note, I can see DRS is a potential problem to the format, but I'd like to see it legal some months more to decide.