I agree that regular tron and eldrazi tron will be the most powerful decks, but the 'wasteland' part of argument makes no sense imo. What makes you think that only 3 decks can stand a chance?
Also, most modern combo decks dont play looting anyways: saheeli, vizier, thopter urza, neobrand, amulet titan, scapeshift, storm, ad nauseum, taking turns.
Looting was banned cuz the graveyard stuff was too controvertial I think; Dredge was already super annoying before the Gak came around. I think it's a wrong decision tho, the format doesn't have many 1 mana cantrip/enabler cards (serum visions i kinda bad, opt is horrible, the astrolabe is ok i guess, only ancient stirrings is actually really good) and i'll miss izzet phoenix.
And I also bet they'll print Faithless Looting in blue and everyone who hated it will now defend it like it's the second coming of Jesus.
It’s called careful study, though it’s not modern legal. However I could see them maybe print it in a future modern horizons set.
Another one I feel they may print is something along the same lines as looting in red, but make it “rummaging” instead of looting. Like “Discard 2, draw 2”, but it would probably have to be worded “discard up to 2 cards and draw that many cards” just to not make it a one mana divination when hellbent.
My kingdom for Careful Study to be legal in Modern!! The worst part of playing Gifts Ungiven decks was wanting the ease of Faithless Looting, but not wanting to bork up my mana.
Careful Study wouldn't help the decks that were murdered for Hogaak, UR Phoenix and Dredge's crimes because IT'S BLUE.
Mardu Pyro, BR Elementals, Soulflayer, Unearth decks and Grishoalbrand NEED Faithless Looting because it's the only sensible draw in and a way to discard your reanimation targets in case you drew them.
And "R, Rummage 2" would also empower Dredge ridiculously harder than it would aid any of the rogues that died, it literaly reads "Bin your imps and Dredge 10".
Banning Looting is the final nail in the coffin of Modern. Hitting a wide swath of decks because people want less combo decks is dumb as hell. Modern will become a wasteland like Standard where 3-4 decks take control of the meta and nothing else will stand a chance. Expect a huge Tron revival now.
that's absurd. combo will still exist, but the majority like Modern better when it is slower and more interactive, which this does
This. You can still Storm out or attempt to Dredge or do other interactions, but decks won't feel obligated to just jam Faithless Looting because it's amazing.
As for Mystic, there's likely a supplemental set around the winter holidays, I expect to see it there.
Storm doesn't even play looting.
people complaining about Looting being banned probably don't remember that everyone was playing surgical extraction mainboard already before hoogak was a thing, because of phoenix.
A meta where surgical extraction is played mainboard, is not a healthy meta.
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
Banning Looting is the final nail in the coffin of Modern. Hitting a wide swath of decks because people want less combo decks is dumb as hell. Modern will become a wasteland like Standard where 3-4 decks take control of the meta and nothing else will stand a chance. Expect a huge Tron revival now.
that's absurd. combo will still exist, but the majority like Modern better when it is slower and more interactive, which this does
This. You can still Storm out or attempt to Dredge or do other interactions, but decks won't feel obligated to just jam Faithless Looting because it's amazing.
As for Mystic, there's likely a supplemental set around the winter holidays, I expect to see it there.
Storm doesn't even play looting.
people complaining about Looting being banned probably don't remember that everyone was playing surgical extraction mainboard already before hoogak was a thing, because of phoenix.
A meta where surgical extraction is played mainboard, is not a healthy meta.
Old storm lists had looting and ascension but I don't think any recent lists were playing any of those.
I really don't understand why people think banning looting was a bad decision. That card was fueling a lot of dominant decks that were interested mostly in playing solitaire instead of interacting with opponent. While some tier 1.5/2 decks were playing looting as well they were not the major part of metagame and they can use other tools for similar effect and still have better chance against meta with nerfed gak/phoenix/etc. Very good point on extraction. People will feel less need to run gy hate now so some fringe decks relying on gy will be a bit better. Overall good decision.
I'm very interested how will vintage metagame look with unrestricted fastbond. I hope there will be viable decks that will utilize fastbond in broken but interesting way.
My early testing with SFM (mostly in a UW Midrange shell a la Cawblade or Legacy UW Stoneblade) seems to indicate that the card is balanced in Modern, at least against fair decks and more controlling decks. Jund often had enough removal to kill SFM first, Batterskull later, and every single Sword carrier for dessert. Mono-G Tron needed to get disrupted (often at least twice) or it ran over Team SFM's board state regardless of SFM. Whirza often forced through its infinite combo (Thopter-Sword-Urza) through disruption, and it could always lean on trying to force through Ensnaring Bridge as a back-up plan. I'm not optimistic that SFM will perform any better against combo than Goyf already does because the life gain rarely matters and SFM delays itself for a turn trying to reach Goyf size. I built a Saheeli Copycat Snowblade deck in the process, and initial testing of that one is promising, but it has a larger weakness to combo. (One thing that makes me optimistic about Copycat Snowblade is that it mirrors the Twinblade decks of yore, and already Jund felt the pinch between breaking up the combo and nuking Batterskull once in testing.)
Of course, SFM is likely going to try its best to warp the Burn, Mono-Red Prowess, and UWx Control match-ups in its favour. I should try these match-ups next.
I'm now more confident that more optimal Modern SFM shells need more creatures (or at least more Lingering Souls) to make any Swords tutored for worth a card. Even the vaunted Sword of Fire and Ice was often worse than Batterskull (though I think SoFaI is the better choice against combo because of the card draw and similar clock speed-up).
My early testing with SFM (mostly in a UW Midrange shell a la Cawblade or Legacy UW Stoneblade) seems to indicate that the card is balanced in Modern, at least against fair decks and more controlling decks. Jund often had enough removal to kill SFM first, Batterskull later, and every single Sword carrier for dessert. Mono-G Tron needed to get disrupted (often at least twice) or it ran over Team SFM's board state regardless of SFM. Whirza often forced through its infinite combo (Thopter-Sword-Urza) through disruption, and it could always lean on trying to force through Ensnaring Bridge as a back-up plan. I'm not optimistic that SFM will perform any better against combo than Goyf already does because the life gain rarely matters and SFM delays itself for a turn trying to reach Goyf size. I built a Saheeli Copycat Snowblade deck in the process, and initial testing of that one is promising, but it has a larger weakness to combo. (One thing that makes me optimistic about Copycat Snowblade is that it mirrors the Twinblade decks of yore, and already Jund felt the pinch between breaking up the combo and nuking Batterskull once in testing.)
Of course, SFM is likely going to try its best to warp the Burn, Mono-Red Prowess, and UWx Control match-ups in its favour. I should try these match-ups next.
I'm now more confident that more optimal Modern SFM shells need more creatures (or at least more Lingering Souls) to make any Swords tutored for worth a card. Even the vaunted Sword of Fire and Ice was often worse than Batterskull (though I think SoFaI is the better choice against combo because of the card draw and similar clock speed-up).
I agree, after playing in MTGO since Monday with and against SFM it doesn't seem to make any current deck better, if anything it will give UW control the batterskull they need to survive vs burn and dredge, but for other mid range decks dealing with it is easy.
The words seem still very slow:
Turn 1.- discard or cantrip
Turn 2.- SFM
turn 3.- Before your 4th turn put a sword into play
turn 4.- equip sword, attack, opponent plays path to exile in response to equipping. You invested 6 mana with no payoff to speak for.
Nevertheless there is an infect deck running sigarda's aid and SFM to tutor for the big hammer and kill you in turn 3, and can pull some tricks.
Tested Modern UW Stoneblade against Burn, Mono-Red Prowess, and Humans today. Burn dealt with SFM quite well--Searing Blaze is game over for Team SFM, and even Bolting SFM the turn it ETB generally doesn't set back Burn hard enough. Turn 5 Batterskull also tends to be too late, and I'm not quite sure whether Sword of War and Peace is fast enough to handle Burn more reliably.
Team SFM had an easier time dealing with Mono-Red Prowess because of Team Prowess's larger dependency on creatures, but even Team Prowess often had the removal for SFM and the ability to win before Batterskull landed.
SFM rucked Humans quite hard, though. Humans somehow didn't really get Reflector Mage in testing, but not even Kitesail Freebooter grabbing equipment could hold off Team SFM for long enough, as Team SFM often had the removal for it. SFM letting Batterskull dodge Meddling Mage was great, too. Frankly, though, a dip in the Humans count feels welcome on my end.
It still seems that the most dangerous thing SFM can do to the meta is suppress aggro decks.
I got in one game with UW Stoneblade against UW Control. Stoneblade won, but it lost both equipment and a bunch of creatures in the process. UW Control notably went down to 0 cards in its library, then a practically exhausted Stoneblade countered Teferi, Hero of Dominaria while he was trying to tuck himself every turn.
As a bonus, I also got a moment to test Saheeli Snowblade against Burn. The match-up is surprisingly poor, as Snowblade can generally get only one of the SFM and Copycat plans going, and Burn has enough removal to deal with one of those plans.
Yea I figured Hogaak would get banned still to broken even with brdige from below getting banned (ps why is it still banned of Hogaak is gone?) anyway atleast legacy/vintage and commander will have a place for him (reminder jimmy did very well with Hogaak in modern horizons commander game)
faithless looting really why that has it ben breaking backs in modern
stoneforge mystic whoa that’s a mega large gamble for sure of unbanning it karn, the great creator is the best defense I can think of for now but more defense has happened though
Bridge from Below is gonna stay on the banlist for the time being because it's still a very abusable card without Hogaak
Bridgevine was one of the fastest decks in the format before Hogaak was printed; the only reason why it wasn't played more is because all of the Looting decks in the format were much more consistent while also being similarly fast. Unbanning Bridge in Modern while banning Looting would result in the rest of the format slowing down while keeping Bridgevine's speed the same, which would possibly make it the fastest deck in Modern.
Have you been paying attention to Modern? Faithless Looting has absolutely been breaking backs in Modern; the speed of the entire format has been defined by Looting decks recently, with slower decks being almost completely crowded out of the meta. Many decks would need to pack a disproportionate amount of maindeck graveyard hate in order to even stand a chance, and it's the primary reason why a card like Surgical Extraction inflated to become a $50 card.
Stoneforge Mystic isn't that much of a gamble; there is plenty of artifact hate in Modern now, especially with new additions like Collector Ouphe and Force of Vigor. Furthermore, Stoneforge Mystic does a great job of accomplishing what Wizards wants to do with the format, which is to slow it down and draw games out a little more. Modern Horizons also accomplished this with slower and grindier cards like Urza, Yawgmoth, Seasoned Pyromancer, Ranger-Captain of Eos, and the horizon lands, and unbanning Stoneforge Mystic is the next step towards accomplishing that goal.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
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Also, most modern combo decks dont play looting anyways: saheeli, vizier, thopter urza, neobrand, amulet titan, scapeshift, storm, ad nauseum, taking turns.
Looting was banned cuz the graveyard stuff was too controvertial I think; Dredge was already super annoying before the Gak came around. I think it's a wrong decision tho, the format doesn't have many 1 mana cantrip/enabler cards (serum visions i kinda bad, opt is horrible, the astrolabe is ok i guess, only ancient stirrings is actually really good) and i'll miss izzet phoenix.
My kingdom for Careful Study to be legal in Modern!! The worst part of playing Gifts Ungiven decks was wanting the ease of Faithless Looting, but not wanting to bork up my mana.
DracoBall: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/598529-dracoball-updated-3-24-15
Fantastic Fours: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/603605-fantastic-fours
Mardu Pyro, BR Elementals, Soulflayer, Unearth decks and Grishoalbrand NEED Faithless Looting because it's the only sensible draw in and a way to discard your reanimation targets in case you drew them.
And "R, Rummage 2" would also empower Dredge ridiculously harder than it would aid any of the rogues that died, it literaly reads "Bin your imps and Dredge 10".
Good thing for me!
none
Modern
UBG B/U/G control
BBB MBC
WUR Control
WWW Prison
RRR Goblins
Legacy
BBB Pox
UBG B/U/G Control
UWU StoneBlade
UW Miracle Control
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Storm doesn't even play looting.
people complaining about Looting being banned probably don't remember that everyone was playing surgical extraction mainboard already before hoogak was a thing, because of phoenix.
A meta where surgical extraction is played mainboard, is not a healthy meta.
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
I really don't understand why people think banning looting was a bad decision. That card was fueling a lot of dominant decks that were interested mostly in playing solitaire instead of interacting with opponent. While some tier 1.5/2 decks were playing looting as well they were not the major part of metagame and they can use other tools for similar effect and still have better chance against meta with nerfed gak/phoenix/etc. Very good point on extraction. People will feel less need to run gy hate now so some fringe decks relying on gy will be a bit better. Overall good decision.
I'm very interested how will vintage metagame look with unrestricted fastbond. I hope there will be viable decks that will utilize fastbond in broken but interesting way.
Of course, SFM is likely going to try its best to warp the Burn, Mono-Red Prowess, and UWx Control match-ups in its favour. I should try these match-ups next.
I'm now more confident that more optimal Modern SFM shells need more creatures (or at least more Lingering Souls) to make any Swords tutored for worth a card. Even the vaunted Sword of Fire and Ice was often worse than Batterskull (though I think SoFaI is the better choice against combo because of the card draw and similar clock speed-up).
I agree, after playing in MTGO since Monday with and against SFM it doesn't seem to make any current deck better, if anything it will give UW control the batterskull they need to survive vs burn and dredge, but for other mid range decks dealing with it is easy.
The words seem still very slow:
Turn 1.- discard or cantrip
Turn 2.- SFM
turn 3.- Before your 4th turn put a sword into play
turn 4.- equip sword, attack, opponent plays path to exile in response to equipping. You invested 6 mana with no payoff to speak for.
Nevertheless there is an infect deck running sigarda's aid and SFM to tutor for the big hammer and kill you in turn 3, and can pull some tricks.
We still have Storm, Burn and Affinity all strong vs Tron.
Eldrazi Tron just lost one of its best matchup in UR phoenix.
Team SFM had an easier time dealing with Mono-Red Prowess because of Team Prowess's larger dependency on creatures, but even Team Prowess often had the removal for SFM and the ability to win before Batterskull landed.
SFM rucked Humans quite hard, though. Humans somehow didn't really get Reflector Mage in testing, but not even Kitesail Freebooter grabbing equipment could hold off Team SFM for long enough, as Team SFM often had the removal for it. SFM letting Batterskull dodge Meddling Mage was great, too. Frankly, though, a dip in the Humans count feels welcome on my end.
It still seems that the most dangerous thing SFM can do to the meta is suppress aggro decks.
I got in one game with UW Stoneblade against UW Control. Stoneblade won, but it lost both equipment and a bunch of creatures in the process. UW Control notably went down to 0 cards in its library, then a practically exhausted Stoneblade countered Teferi, Hero of Dominaria while he was trying to tuck himself every turn.
As a bonus, I also got a moment to test Saheeli Snowblade against Burn. The match-up is surprisingly poor, as Snowblade can generally get only one of the SFM and Copycat plans going, and Burn has enough removal to deal with one of those plans.
Bridge from Below is gonna stay on the banlist for the time being because it's still a very abusable card without Hogaak
Bridgevine was one of the fastest decks in the format before Hogaak was printed; the only reason why it wasn't played more is because all of the Looting decks in the format were much more consistent while also being similarly fast. Unbanning Bridge in Modern while banning Looting would result in the rest of the format slowing down while keeping Bridgevine's speed the same, which would possibly make it the fastest deck in Modern.
Have you been paying attention to Modern? Faithless Looting has absolutely been breaking backs in Modern; the speed of the entire format has been defined by Looting decks recently, with slower decks being almost completely crowded out of the meta. Many decks would need to pack a disproportionate amount of maindeck graveyard hate in order to even stand a chance, and it's the primary reason why a card like Surgical Extraction inflated to become a $50 card.
Stoneforge Mystic isn't that much of a gamble; there is plenty of artifact hate in Modern now, especially with new additions like Collector Ouphe and Force of Vigor. Furthermore, Stoneforge Mystic does a great job of accomplishing what Wizards wants to do with the format, which is to slow it down and draw games out a little more. Modern Horizons also accomplished this with slower and grindier cards like Urza, Yawgmoth, Seasoned Pyromancer, Ranger-Captain of Eos, and the horizon lands, and unbanning Stoneforge Mystic is the next step towards accomplishing that goal.