1. It is a turn 3 uncounterable instant speed batterskull.
2. Its a one card combo.
3. Stoneforge tutor batterskull is still value if they remove stoneforge.
4. Its relevant even turn 5-6.
5. Both cards are individually good. Even without the other they are majn deckable.
6. It makes an underplayed archetype (aggro) worse whilst pushing yet more midrange.
7. It warps ever midrange deck to play/splash stoneforge/skull
8. All of the above is obvious.
Fair enough. But I didn't say now. Is it unreasonable to think that SFM could come off in the future after cards like Jace and Green Sun's Zenith are viewed as safe in the format?
I think it's time for Bloodbraid Elf to come back. Is it a good card? Yep. Is Jund going to somehow be overly oppressive vs the current format just because of this card? Not even close. Jund is a good, fair deck. In a format ripe with combos, fair isn't where you want to be atm.
Isn't it odd then that Jund rips apart creature based combo decks like Splinter Twin? And if combo decks could beat Jund, wouldn't the meta have changed to fight Jund before it was banned? Also, with BGx decks being a huge part of the format right now it isn't safe.
Well, the card that actually broke out Stoneforge Mystic was neither of those cards. It was Sword of Feast and Famine. In a format where bg decks make for a respectable portion of the metagame the impact of getting this online early enough should be quite good.
Without Batterskull or Jitte, the worst thing that it can do is get a sword. That means that you are paying 2 mana for a Squire+Steelshaper's Gift and then giving the sword a 1 mana discount and making it uncounterable. The sword can't be equipped to anything until turn 4. How is that in any way broken?
If you honestly think that Chrome Mox will be a problem in Twin decks when most good players have explicitly stated that they only go for the combo at the last minute and are moving away from it towards a more tempo-oriented plan, then your evaluation skill is the one that needs to be put into question. Even when the king of fast mana was legal (Rite) Twin didn't play fast mana cards. And that was in a format even faster than the current one. P&P are unbans that are many times more problematic in the face of Twin than Chrome Mox could ever be.
There is not a single good infect player that wants to -2 their hand for speed. I say this as a religious infect player. Contrary to popular belief the deck only windmill slams the early game win when their opponent is completely tapped out and you have the near god hand. In fact the CM hurts such a play because it takes away one of your pump spells or an infect creature, and every single one of those pump spells is extremely important to such fast wins. The CM doesn't even contribute to poison count in the way our main mana-producer Noble Heirarch does.
As for Griselbrand we all know that deck is a glass canon pile of trash. Its already got all the speed it wants in that Spirit Giude. The deck doesn't want more speed, its got that in spades already and giving it more would be like giving a jet that goes Mach5 1 more mph in speed. In other words: totally pointless and not helpful to its game plan. It wants more consistency, not speed.
CM might be a problem in some deck down the line or one that just doesn't show up much yet, but it is certainly not too powerful in Twin, Griss, or Infect.
Actually, this is a good point. Look at the decks that Chrome Mox could be used in.
In Griselbrand Reanimator it might replace Simian Spirit Guide, but would that make it any faster? The deck doesn't have enough room to run both Mox and Guide.
In Storm it would allow turn 1 Electromancer/Ascension. This is what I think the biggest problem would be.
In Ad Nauseam, it would see play, but the deck still couldn't combo before turn 4.
In Splinter Twin, it might not see play. What are the chances that you would have Chrome Mox, Splinter Twin, and Exarch/Pestermite in your top 10 cards (of course, if Preordain and Ponder were unbanned, this could be a problem).
Tezzerator and WR Lockdown would both get large boosts from this.
So the questions are, would it make Storm too fast and would it make Twin too fast if Ponder and Preordain were unbanned with it.
haha, Modern Jund (aka BGx shell) is not the Alara Jund (aka the pile of the best cards in the format). BGx is a suicide, black, aggro-control deck, that uses the graveyard as a resource, and it is with powerful interactions between the cards (Bob+Lili breaks the symmetry of her +1, while allowing the Goyfs and Scoozes to grow, the Loam recycles, discarding Lingering souls is sort of card advantage and so on.)
Jund doesn't play Life from the Loam. Also, I wouldn't define Goyf, Deathrite Shaman, and Scavenging Ooze as having synergy. It is impressive that they even work together in the same deck.
your "probably" list should NOT include SFM or Batterskull would need to be banned. Jitte isn't coming off though you'll see that come off sooner than skullclamp.
And I'm fairly sure GSZ won't be coming off anytime soon (if ever) due to the fact that its essentially a recycling tutor for dryad arbor and other ridiculous shenanigans.
However I do agree that JTMS will be unbanned at some point in the future.
Please explain to me how a turn 3 instant Batterskull is any more broken than an enormous amount of other things in Modern. It won't be coming off now, but unless if Wizards prints another broken Modern-legal equipment card, it will come off eventually.
Also, the shuffle ability of GSZ really isn't all that relevant. There aren't many ridiculous shenanigans at all. The only thing is that it was played in most green decks.
P&P lead to much higher consistency of blue decks, tilting the format towards a blue format since no other color has that type of deck manipulation. They also make combo much more consistent and a bit faster. I could see preordain coming off leaving ponder on.
If both Ponder and Preordain were unbanned, the format would tilt more towards blue. But blue is the least-played color in Modern. If the format was more blue, that would just put it on equal footing with black and green. Also, while it makes combo decks more consistent, why is that a problem? As long as they don't break the turn 4 rule consistently, consistent combo decks wouldn't be breaking any rules of the format. Look at the decks that would play Ponder/Preordain if they were unbanned.
UR Delver, RUG Delver, and Ninja Bear Delver are all tempo decks, not combo decks. They also need the boost.
Splinter Twin can't break the turn 4 rule.
Ad Nauseum can't break the turn 4 rule.
Amulet of Vigor and Goryo's Vengeance would replace Serum Visions, but I don't think that they have the room to run both Ponder and Preordain. I also doubt that this would make them consistent enough to break the turn 4 rule.
Storm would become consistent enough to become Tier 1.5 again. I doubt that this would make them able to break the turn 4 rule, but testing would be nice here.
I doubt that there would be much of a problem, but Storm, Goryo's Vengeance, and Amulet of Vigor would need testing.
I think either Preordain or Ponder will be unbanned, but not both... maybe eventually?
And yeah, regarding Sword of the Meek I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to judge it.
Bloodbraid Elf is definitely not more powerful than JTMS and SFM.
Why won't they both be unbanned? They don't enable anything broken (all of the Turn 3 combos were banned out of Modern). Also, you have a poitn about BBE.
So looking at the ban list in its entirety I can split it into three groups, things that could probably be unbanned right now, things that could be unbanned in the future after the format has a few years of growth and power up, and things that I can't see ever being unbanned.
Unban now/soon:
Wild Nacatl - Needs to be freed, zoo must live again and having a 3/3 on turn 2 is not going to make the deck somehow crush everything else
Ancestral Visions - With nothing (good) to cascade into it, it's entirely fair and won't break the format.
Bitterblossom - It's not that scary or good
Golgari Grave Troll - Why not? Dredge is dead, throw them a bone. We have scavenging ooze and DRS mainboard everywhere, what could go wrong
Possible unban many years into future:
Bloodbraid Elf
Green's Sun Zenith
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Preordain
Never unbanned:
Everything else
You seriously think that Bloodbraid Elf and Jace will be unbanned, but Ponder and Sword of the Meek never will? And you think that it will take many years to unban Preordain? Why? Here is what I think could happen.
Possibly unbanned in the near future
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Bitterblossom
Golgari Grave-Troll
Ancestral Vision
Probably unbanned eventually
Ponder (it could be unbanned soon, but I don't think that it will)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Stoneforge Mystic or Umezawa's Jitte
Sword of the Meek (Wizards is afraid enough of this one that it isn't coming off for a while)
Green Sun's Zenith
Never unbanned
Everything else (I want Seething Song unbanned, but it never will be)
Meh, the most powerful aspect of Twin is that it will beat you down with it's flash critters even if it doesn't combo out. AV lends a bunch of fuel to the beat down plan.
While taking away the ability to find the combo (if it replaces Serum Visions) and being a horrible topdeck.
You are still making massive assumptions here. I think it's possible that in the long run, Splinter Twin builds would not run a playset of Ancestral Vision, but it's equally possible that it becomes the best card in the deck.
Look, it's easy enough to cut some cards for testing purposes. Let's use Marcel Kachapow's Top 8 list from GP Prague:
After some evolution, it could easily become something like:
3 Serum Vision
2 Ancestral Vision
2 Izzet Charm
Maybe the deck doesn't cut any Splinter Twins, maybe it slims down to 3 copies of the enchantment to support 6 cantrips (3 Visions, 3 Vision).
The Point is though Valanarch, HOW DO YOU KNOW that Twin players won't use this insanely powerful spell? YOU DON'T. And again, I guarantee you that as soon as it were unbanned, people would be jamming 4 copies in their Twin decks tomorrow and winning with it to boot. Maybe when the dust settles, AV would end up being too slow for most Twin decks. Or maybe the Blue decks in the meta would change so much that everything would change, including Twin's presence in the metagame. None of us can predict what would happen though, so don't get all high and mighty about what is obvious and what isn't.
Fair enough, but here's my question. How would Twin being able to draw 3 cards on turn 5 at best break the deck?
You can levy SS and Bogles against nearly any deck, especially if you strategically leave in a "but what if their deck fails on them and they don't draw the built in out against SS/Bogles" rider.
I mean really, Bogles is a flimsy metagame deck that either gets away with denying interaction to degenerate effect or just falls apart. They either have that hexproof 6/6 with the Coronet or they've just been struggling to connect a Keen Sense'd Gladecover Scout with your skull.
Actually, from what I've seen, the reason why those two decks don't do well is that they don't have enough room for disruption and just auto-lose to combo.
You are assuming the Zoo player will only have 1 kitty. I really think you are underestimating Zoo, then and what it would be if kitty was unbanned. But we will see in a few days if we get a chance to find out. I doubt it comes off, but maybe.
I doubt that it will come off too. My money is on
1. No changes (most likely)
2. Bitterblossom
3. Golgari Grave-Troll
I want many other cards unbanned, but these are the only 2 that I can realistically see Wizards unban right now. They probably won't unban Nacatl for a while. Same goes for Green Sun's Zenith. With Splinter Twin doing so well they won't unban the cantrips. It is too soon to unban Seething Song (if it would be safe, I'm not sure on that). They are probably not going to unban Sword of the Meek, Stoneforge Mystic, Umezawa' Jitte, or Jace for several years at best. They aren't going to unban Ancestral Vision right now after WUR Midrange won GP Prague.
Dont forget, Zoo is the colors of the enchantment hate that would feast on Bogles. Also sliding pyroclasm or some other red sweeper in the side wouldnt be a stretch at all. Bogles only run 12-16 creatures.
Zoo has the ability to fight off most other aggro decks. Adding kitty just gives the deck bigger quicker beats.
If the Zoo player doesn't have the enchantment hate or sweeper in hand, Bogles will win. They can't easily remove a creature in play and they can't beat lifelink on a large creature. And Soul Sisters does even better at that. Martyr of Sands can invalidate Nacatl for 5 turns. If you add that to repeated lifegain from Soul Sisters, huge creatures in the forms of Serra Ascendant and Ajani's Pridemate, and large amounts of chump-blockers from Spectral Procession, it sounds problematic at least for Zoo.
Thats a lot of theory crafting. Burn is T1.5, maybe T2 in the format right now. Its a meta call, can be solid, can be terrible. Bogle is in a bad place at the moment. So much hate and people have learned to play against the deck. Life gain (Soul sisters) is another meta call. Life gain doesnt always get you there. And Hatebears, The deck was built to feast on Jund. Hatebears would probably loose some ground with full aggro Zoo in the format.
So more or less what you are asking for is moving a T1.5-T2 deck, current Zoo, to T1, hurting a couple other decks along the way.
Lets not forget about Affinity. Zoo had good match ups with Affinity pre bans. Would they be the same or worse now? I dont see how they could get much worse.
Soul Sisters and Bogles both can easily beat Naya Zoo (Really, see how much your Wild Nacatls do when your opponent has a Serra Ascendant and 2 Soul Sisters on the board. Or if your opponent has a hexproof 6/6 creature with vigilance, lifelink, and first strike). And other than decks with lifegain improving to combat Naya Zoo, I can't see Burn doing any worse because of Nacatl Naya. I can see your point on Hatebears though, especially since Tron would get worse with more aggro decks that can survive Pyroclasm in the format. I think moving Soul Sisters to Tier 1.5, Bogles to Tier 2, and Naya Zoo to Tier 1 is worth it even if Burn, Hatebears, and Death and Taxes get a little worse.
Have you been paying any attention to the Splinter Twin decks that have been seeing success lately? Allow me to quote Patrick Dickmann, who posts here as Darguad, and won GP Antwerp with Splinter Twin:
The Twin decks that are winning these days (consistently) aren't winning on turn 4. They're just presenting that threat. If you follow the deck's trajectory, pilots are actually looking to see how many combo win conditions they can realistically shave to make the deck apply more traditional pressure, while still being able to threaten combo.
Does this mean Twin would play Ancestral Visions if it became unbanned? I don't think we would (because we need our topdecks to be good more than we need raw card advantage). But it's not as ridiculous of a claim as you suggest.
But as you said, they have to present the threat. Removing Serum Visions and Kiki-Jiki and reducing the number of Splinter Twins would remove that threat, which would place the deck in Scapeshift's territory, which it is not suited for.
YES THEY WOULD.
JUST BECAUSE BOROS ISN'T PLACING DOESN'T MEAN IT CAN'T.
Burn still existed when Nacatl was in the format. Soul Sisters and Bogles have a huge advantage against fair decks. Adding Nacatl to the format might make them do better. Hatebears is strong enough in the unfair matchups that I think that it could stick around. And good luck with Boros.
When Nacatl's being talked about, it's in the context of the aggro decks in Naya colors that become inferior when you can just build Naya Zoo instead, not in the grand scheme of all aggro varieties.
Since Gruul and Boros aren't doing well right now anyways and Hatebears, Burn, Soul Sisters, and Bogles are different enough that they wouldn't be invalidated, Nacatl wouldn't push anything out of the format.
Actually thopter and DD were 2 different decks that merged into a dominating deck in Extended. Both had there bad match ups back then, but together they nullified some of them. Even after the format devolved into thopter/dd decks and those deck trying to beat thopter/DD decks, there wasnt enough hate to slow it down.
That is my point. They only needed bans when they were combined. If Sword of the Meek was taken off without Dark Depths being taken off, it wouldn't be broken.
Here, you jump down the throat of another poster, clearly making the point that Ancestral Vision would be absolutely terrible in any Twin deck.
Yet, I can nearly guarantee that if AV were unbanned today, MODO would be filled with pilots running 4 copies of AV in their Splinter Twin decks, and by Monday we'd probably see at least a couple folks 4-0 with such a build.
Where it would go from there is anyone's guess, but it's very likely most Blue decks would dabble in some number of Visions. It is Ancestral after all.
As for why run Twin over Control? Well, people like to combo. Combos are powerful, and win much more quickly than Colonnades and Resto Angels. You didn't even stop to think that maybe the shell stays basically the same, only you can afford to cut down on Splinter Twins now that you have a card that digs even deeper into your deck.
No one knows for sure what would happen if Ancestral was unbanned. Just don't pretend that ultimatums are going to hold up in this theorycrafting discussion. Dismissing a possibility like Ancestral Vision in Twin is just blind disobedience.
The whole point of Splinter Twin is that it is a consistent Turn 4 combo. If it cut Serum Visions for Ancestral Vision and cut some pieces of its combo for more control, then it would be winning on turn 5-6 on average. Twin is much worse as a late-game combo/control deck than Scapeshift. It wouldn't see play if it wasn't trying to combo on turn 4.
About Blossom in Jund or BG more concretely, probably wouldn't be a staple like Tarmogoyf or Dark Confidant, but would just compete with Lingering Souls for a slot in those versions that play it. What I meant is that the card can be played in more archetypes than just Faeries, and that Faeries would have a bad time against Jund, moreover if there is a bunch of flying tokens to chumpblock.
The point is that even if this is true, it would be competing with other cards that are often better. It isn't necessarily better than Lingering Souls. It dies to removal, it doesn't work with Liliana, it can be discarded or countered effectively, it makes you lose life, and it doesn't immediately stall the game, which makes it much worse than Lingering Souls against aggro.
Realistically, if you look as the rationale for the only card in Modern to be unbanned:
[QUOTE]We wanted a card that would not easily slot into an existing top deck and also wanted to enable a deck with a different play pattern than the current top decks.
What WON'T be unbanned:
Ancestral Vision: UWR can play it
Wild Nacatl: Zoo can play it
Cantrips, rituals: Storm can play it, Twin can play cantrips
That quote specifically said top decks. Zoo hasn't done much of anything for a while and pure creature aggro doesn't exist in Modern. Also, Storm is a Tier 3 deck, not a top deck. You are probably right about Ancestral Vision and the cantrips for now, especially after GP Prague.
What MIGHT be unbanned:
1) Golgari Grave-Troll
Why it can come off: Dredge needs Dread Return (still banned) to actually do anything
Why it can't come off: Wizards hates Dredge
Wizards hates a lot of things. One can hope that they don't let that decide what gets banned.
2) Bitterblossom
Why it can come off: Enables Faeries*
Why it can't come off: Punishing Fire is still banned
We did testing. Bitterblossom was not broken. It still has a lot of bad matchups.
3) Sword of the Meek
Why it can come off: Needs Chrome Mox and possibly artifact lands (still banned) to be good
Why it can't come off: Drags out rounds**
It doesn't drag out games as much as Second Sunrise or Sensei's Top do. It isn't enough to get it banned.
*I do not buy "Abrupt Decay exists" as a reason. It can't be countered...big deal. Flash in Scion of Oona, oops, you just wasted a Decay.
How are you flashing in Scion of Oona on turn 2?
**"Control mirrors always drag out rounds, WTF are you talking about???" There's one difference with Sword: the Thopter Sword combo gains life. This makes it even harder to end the game.
Humor me for a moment, did you play Pokemon in Gen III? Do you know what happens when two Wobbuffets end up fighting each other? Here are the facts:
1) Their ability, Shadow Tag, prevents either player from switching to a different Pokemon. So your Wobbuffet is stuck trying to kill the other Wobbuffet.
2) Wobbuffet has very high defenses but is basically useless for offense. In fact, Wobbuffet doesn't even have direct-damage attacks. It only gains a direct damage attack, Struggle, when it runs out of PP. This could take upward of 60 turns.
3) Struggle has a base damage of 50 (which is considered very low), and deals 1/4 of the damage inflicted on the opponent back to the user. (So if Struggle ends up dealing 16HP of damage to the opponent, the user loses 4HP.) Seems like this means that there'll eventually be a conclusion to the battle, right?
4) Wrong. All Wobbuffet hold Leftovers (it's not compulsory, but it is the best item). This item heals 1/16 of the user's HP every turn and never runs out (unless the user goes to 0HP, in which case it has no effect; it can't revive dead guys). Which is way more than the opposing Wobbuffet's Struggle, combined with its own Struggle recoil, could deal.
What does all this mean? In short, the battle never ends. Neither Wobbuffet can switch out, and they can't kill each other because Leftovers heals more damage than they can deal.
This was so bad that in the next generation, Shadow Tag was tweaked so that two Pokemon with Shadow Tag could switch out from each other. Additionally, Struggle dealt 1/4 of the user's total HP, instead of 1/4 of the damage inflicted (so if your max HP was 521, you took 130 recoil damage from Struggle, no matter how much damage the Struggle dealt to your opponent).
Now of course Magic is different - eventually you'll deck out. But can you deck out twice within 50 minutes, without any mill from your opponent? I doubt that.
This is false, because in a control mirror, either your opponent will counter a piece of the combo or you will assemble it. If it is countered/discarded then the game won't take any longer than if it was a normal control mirror. If you assemble the combo, then you will win. Nothing in there makes the game take longer. Even in a mirror with both players playing the combo, each player can still counter/discard the opponent's combo and a player will eventually get manascrewed and not be able to make as many tokens as the opponent. Yes, mirror matches between two Thopter Sword decks take a while. But it would not be as bad as Top/Sunrise and it is not enough to get the deck banned.
So, the cards that could possibly come off (as in, I'm putting myself in Wizards' position - the below cards are not what I think should be unbanned, but what I think Wizards will unban, if any) are:
Grave-Troll
BB
Sword
And what will be banned:
Something from BGx
Wizards has shown with Storm that they're not afraid of banning cards from 1 deck twice. And, BGx has been putting a lot of people into GP Top 8s. Personally I think DRS should have been banned instead of BBE, but the RTR cash cow hadn't been milked dry at the time yet. Oh well.
BGx has been doing well, but it hasn't been dominating online and it hasn't actually won any tournaments. It is not getting a ban.
If I were to read WotC actions regarding the Nacatl banning. It would appear that it's a temporary ban until the other aggro decks like RG Zoo, Boros, etc are competitive enough that even though Nacatl is legal, you still have the benefit of staying in 2 colors. They are already fixing this with Theros Devotion mechanic since Devotion is limited to 1 or 2 colors. They just need the same scenario that BGx decks have right now where there is benefit in going straight BG, BGR, BGW and BGRW. So I think they needed to ban Nacatl at that moment until the other aggro archetype can catch-up.
So they banned Nacatl before they even knew that they would be doing devotion in Theros so that it could be unbanned when other decks were viable? And they couldn't have just left Nacatl in the format until those decks were viable? When Nacatl was unbanned we had two aggro decks. Right now we have two aggro decks. I don't think that they banned Nacatl just because they wanted to unban it when Boros and Gruul were viable decks. If new cards would make those specific decks viable, then they would make them just as viable if Nacatl was in the format before than if it was unbanned immediately after they were printed.
Wild nacatl should not have been banned in the first place. The decks that were playing nacatl also had green sun's zenith which is what really made the deck too good. Nacatl is no more oppressive than delver or expirement 1.
I think that what Modern needs right now is some unbannings, and not bannings, to make the format more diverse. We're still lacking a true control deck and there are very few aggro decks. My opinion on some of the cards that have been mentioned:
Wild Nacatl: I didn't understand why it was banned at first, but unbanning it now wouldn't make Gruul or Burn worse aggro decks, but add Naya to that list.
Golgari Grave-Troll: without Dread Return to power up some silly combo starts, I don't think Dredge can consistently break the turn 4 rule. Moreover, Scavenging Ooze keeps graveyards in check.
Ancestral Visions: it could be thought as the tool control decks need to surge again, but in the past it was actually used by tempo decks (Faeries or Next Level Blue). I think it could push Twin too much to be worth unbanning.
Bitterblossom: it would allow Faeries to become a deck, which would suffer against aggro decks and wouldn't have an easy Jund match-up, moreover if Jund plays also Bitterblossom. Outside Faeries, the card is easily playable, and would definitely bury the hopes of control decks to appear in Modern.
Sword of the Meek: I didn't play the Extended format where it was legal, but besides being too slow, I don't see it powerful enough to be banned, and can be easily hated (Ooze is played maindeck, Stony Silence and Rest in Peace in sideboards). It could be the cheap finisher control decks need in this format, so I'd try it as they did with Valakut.
Seething Song: the problem with that one isn't only Storm, but Through the Breach turn 3 (or turn 2 with Simian Spirit Guide). I don't think it will get unbanned when Storm is still a popular deck in Magic Online.
Mental Misstep: it was a card that had a huge impact in Legacy (until it got banned) but was barely played in Standard. Modern, despite not rotating and having a large pool, is a format more similar to Standard than to Legacy, so I don't think it would be that harmful. Yet again, the problem is that giving Twin a tool to fight discard and removal is too dangerous.
Artifact lands: with the new legend rule, Mox Opal is more powerful than artifact lands in Affinity. Moreover, artifact lands can be used in more decks with Trinket Mage, Thirst for Knowledge or any planeswalker named Tezzeret, while Mox Opal is played only in that archetype. Moreover, an Affinity deck relying in artifact lands would be easier to hate, so I'd try that change.
Although I think WotC wanted Modern to be a midrange format and they're succeeding at it, so there shouldn't be any changes.
Ancestral Vision: I already explained why it wouldn't be played in Splinter Twin. And yes, it would be played in Tempo. There is one Tier 1.5 Tempo deck and three Tier 3 tempo decks in Modern. It is less of the meta than any other archetype. It needs an unban. Ancestral Vision could be that unban.
Bitterblossom: Do you have any proof of it being played in decks other than Faeries, BW Tokens, and Polymorph?
Seething Song: Storm is Tier 2 at best online, it could use an unban (though I do realize that giving it back the cantrips and Seething Song would make it too fast, and the format needs the cantrips more). Also, it wouldn't be played in Griselbrand Reanimator. That combo of yours needs 3 specific cards, with only one of them having another equivalent card. It is too inconsistent to work.
Artifact Lands: Um, no. Ravager Affinity was the most broken Standard deck since the Urza Block. Think of how much more broken it would be with all of the Scars of Mirrodin cards. It would easily break the Turn 4 Rule and warp the format to the point at which people would be playing maindeck Stony Silence to answer it.
Modern being a Midrange format: Last time I checked, Modern was a combo format, not a midrange format.
Don't hold your breath for Sword of the Meek, its probably never coming off. It crushed a format that was much faster than Modern is and is way better if games tend to go long like they do in modern. The only thing that has changed is that there are two more real answers and one of them is extremely beatable, Rest in Peace and Abrupt Decay.
Granted we don't have all the pieces from UW Foundry as Artifact Lands and Chrome Mox are banned and both are semi-important to the deck. However I think if Sword was to be unbanned right now it either would not be good enough to see play due to lack of support or be the best deck as it gives control an win condition that can out grind anything Midrange is doing while being compact enough to enable those decks to pack answers to combo and aggro. To me this seems like a lose-lose situation, it either does nothing or too much, that's why its not worth the risk of unbanning when there are much more reasonable cards which are on the list.
You may be forgetting that Dark Depths+Thopter/Sword was what made it broken, not just one or the other.
Fair enough. But I didn't say now. Is it unreasonable to think that SFM could come off in the future after cards like Jace and Green Sun's Zenith are viewed as safe in the format?
Isn't it odd then that Jund rips apart creature based combo decks like Splinter Twin? And if combo decks could beat Jund, wouldn't the meta have changed to fight Jund before it was banned? Also, with BGx decks being a huge part of the format right now it isn't safe.
Without Batterskull or Jitte, the worst thing that it can do is get a sword. That means that you are paying 2 mana for a Squire+Steelshaper's Gift and then giving the sword a 1 mana discount and making it uncounterable. The sword can't be equipped to anything until turn 4. How is that in any way broken?
Actually, this is a good point. Look at the decks that Chrome Mox could be used in.
In Griselbrand Reanimator it might replace Simian Spirit Guide, but would that make it any faster? The deck doesn't have enough room to run both Mox and Guide.
In Storm it would allow turn 1 Electromancer/Ascension. This is what I think the biggest problem would be.
In Ad Nauseam, it would see play, but the deck still couldn't combo before turn 4.
In Splinter Twin, it might not see play. What are the chances that you would have Chrome Mox, Splinter Twin, and Exarch/Pestermite in your top 10 cards (of course, if Preordain and Ponder were unbanned, this could be a problem).
Tezzerator and WR Lockdown would both get large boosts from this.
So the questions are, would it make Storm too fast and would it make Twin too fast if Ponder and Preordain were unbanned with it.
Jund doesn't play Life from the Loam. Also, I wouldn't define Goyf, Deathrite Shaman, and Scavenging Ooze as having synergy. It is impressive that they even work together in the same deck.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Please explain to me how a turn 3 instant Batterskull is any more broken than an enormous amount of other things in Modern. It won't be coming off now, but unless if Wizards prints another broken Modern-legal equipment card, it will come off eventually.
Also, the shuffle ability of GSZ really isn't all that relevant. There aren't many ridiculous shenanigans at all. The only thing is that it was played in most green decks.
If both Ponder and Preordain were unbanned, the format would tilt more towards blue. But blue is the least-played color in Modern. If the format was more blue, that would just put it on equal footing with black and green. Also, while it makes combo decks more consistent, why is that a problem? As long as they don't break the turn 4 rule consistently, consistent combo decks wouldn't be breaking any rules of the format. Look at the decks that would play Ponder/Preordain if they were unbanned.
UR Delver, RUG Delver, and Ninja Bear Delver are all tempo decks, not combo decks. They also need the boost.
Splinter Twin can't break the turn 4 rule.
Ad Nauseum can't break the turn 4 rule.
Amulet of Vigor and Goryo's Vengeance would replace Serum Visions, but I don't think that they have the room to run both Ponder and Preordain. I also doubt that this would make them consistent enough to break the turn 4 rule.
Storm would become consistent enough to become Tier 1.5 again. I doubt that this would make them able to break the turn 4 rule, but testing would be nice here.
I doubt that there would be much of a problem, but Storm, Goryo's Vengeance, and Amulet of Vigor would need testing.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Why won't they both be unbanned? They don't enable anything broken (all of the Turn 3 combos were banned out of Modern). Also, you have a poitn about BBE.
It could happen eventually, though I would prefer it if SFM came off.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
You seriously think that Bloodbraid Elf and Jace will be unbanned, but Ponder and Sword of the Meek never will? And you think that it will take many years to unban Preordain? Why? Here is what I think could happen.
Possibly unbanned in the near future
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Bitterblossom
Golgari Grave-Troll
Ancestral Vision
Probably unbanned eventually
Ponder (it could be unbanned soon, but I don't think that it will)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Stoneforge Mystic or Umezawa's Jitte
Sword of the Meek (Wizards is afraid enough of this one that it isn't coming off for a while)
Green Sun's Zenith
Never unbanned
Everything else (I want Seething Song unbanned, but it never will be)
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
While taking away the ability to find the combo (if it replaces Serum Visions) and being a horrible topdeck.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Fair enough, but here's my question. How would Twin being able to draw 3 cards on turn 5 at best break the deck?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Actually, from what I've seen, the reason why those two decks don't do well is that they don't have enough room for disruption and just auto-lose to combo.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I doubt that it will come off too. My money is on
1. No changes (most likely)
2. Bitterblossom
3. Golgari Grave-Troll
I want many other cards unbanned, but these are the only 2 that I can realistically see Wizards unban right now. They probably won't unban Nacatl for a while. Same goes for Green Sun's Zenith. With Splinter Twin doing so well they won't unban the cantrips. It is too soon to unban Seething Song (if it would be safe, I'm not sure on that). They are probably not going to unban Sword of the Meek, Stoneforge Mystic, Umezawa' Jitte, or Jace for several years at best. They aren't going to unban Ancestral Vision right now after WUR Midrange won GP Prague.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
If the Zoo player doesn't have the enchantment hate or sweeper in hand, Bogles will win. They can't easily remove a creature in play and they can't beat lifelink on a large creature. And Soul Sisters does even better at that. Martyr of Sands can invalidate Nacatl for 5 turns. If you add that to repeated lifegain from Soul Sisters, huge creatures in the forms of Serra Ascendant and Ajani's Pridemate, and large amounts of chump-blockers from Spectral Procession, it sounds problematic at least for Zoo.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Soul Sisters and Bogles both can easily beat Naya Zoo (Really, see how much your Wild Nacatls do when your opponent has a Serra Ascendant and 2 Soul Sisters on the board. Or if your opponent has a hexproof 6/6 creature with vigilance, lifelink, and first strike). And other than decks with lifegain improving to combat Naya Zoo, I can't see Burn doing any worse because of Nacatl Naya. I can see your point on Hatebears though, especially since Tron would get worse with more aggro decks that can survive Pyroclasm in the format. I think moving Soul Sisters to Tier 1.5, Bogles to Tier 2, and Naya Zoo to Tier 1 is worth it even if Burn, Hatebears, and Death and Taxes get a little worse.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
But as you said, they have to present the threat. Removing Serum Visions and Kiki-Jiki and reducing the number of Splinter Twins would remove that threat, which would place the deck in Scapeshift's territory, which it is not suited for.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Burn still existed when Nacatl was in the format. Soul Sisters and Bogles have a huge advantage against fair decks. Adding Nacatl to the format might make them do better. Hatebears is strong enough in the unfair matchups that I think that it could stick around. And good luck with Boros.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Since Gruul and Boros aren't doing well right now anyways and Hatebears, Burn, Soul Sisters, and Bogles are different enough that they wouldn't be invalidated, Nacatl wouldn't push anything out of the format.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
That is my point. They only needed bans when they were combined. If Sword of the Meek was taken off without Dark Depths being taken off, it wouldn't be broken.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
The whole point of Splinter Twin is that it is a consistent Turn 4 combo. If it cut Serum Visions for Ancestral Vision and cut some pieces of its combo for more control, then it would be winning on turn 5-6 on average. Twin is much worse as a late-game combo/control deck than Scapeshift. It wouldn't see play if it wasn't trying to combo on turn 4.
January 27th is when the banned list will be updated.
The point is that even if this is true, it would be competing with other cards that are often better. It isn't necessarily better than Lingering Souls. It dies to removal, it doesn't work with Liliana, it can be discarded or countered effectively, it makes you lose life, and it doesn't immediately stall the game, which makes it much worse than Lingering Souls against aggro.
What WON'T be unbanned:
Ancestral Vision: UWR can play it
Wild Nacatl: Zoo can play it
Cantrips, rituals: Storm can play it, Twin can play cantrips
That quote specifically said top decks. Zoo hasn't done much of anything for a while and pure creature aggro doesn't exist in Modern. Also, Storm is a Tier 3 deck, not a top deck. You are probably right about Ancestral Vision and the cantrips for now, especially after GP Prague.
Wizards hates a lot of things. One can hope that they don't let that decide what gets banned.
We did testing. Bitterblossom was not broken. It still has a lot of bad matchups.
It doesn't drag out games as much as Second Sunrise or Sensei's Top do. It isn't enough to get it banned.
How are you flashing in Scion of Oona on turn 2?
This is false, because in a control mirror, either your opponent will counter a piece of the combo or you will assemble it. If it is countered/discarded then the game won't take any longer than if it was a normal control mirror. If you assemble the combo, then you will win. Nothing in there makes the game take longer. Even in a mirror with both players playing the combo, each player can still counter/discard the opponent's combo and a player will eventually get manascrewed and not be able to make as many tokens as the opponent. Yes, mirror matches between two Thopter Sword decks take a while. But it would not be as bad as Top/Sunrise and it is not enough to get the deck banned.
BGx has been doing well, but it hasn't been dominating online and it hasn't actually won any tournaments. It is not getting a ban.
So they banned Nacatl before they even knew that they would be doing devotion in Theros so that it could be unbanned when other decks were viable? And they couldn't have just left Nacatl in the format until those decks were viable? When Nacatl was unbanned we had two aggro decks. Right now we have two aggro decks. I don't think that they banned Nacatl just because they wanted to unban it when Boros and Gruul were viable decks. If new cards would make those specific decks viable, then they would make them just as viable if Nacatl was in the format before than if it was unbanned immediately after they were printed.
Green Sun's Zenith was already banned when Nacatl was banned.
Ancestral Vision: I already explained why it wouldn't be played in Splinter Twin. And yes, it would be played in Tempo. There is one Tier 1.5 Tempo deck and three Tier 3 tempo decks in Modern. It is less of the meta than any other archetype. It needs an unban. Ancestral Vision could be that unban.
Bitterblossom: Do you have any proof of it being played in decks other than Faeries, BW Tokens, and Polymorph?
Seething Song: Storm is Tier 2 at best online, it could use an unban (though I do realize that giving it back the cantrips and Seething Song would make it too fast, and the format needs the cantrips more). Also, it wouldn't be played in Griselbrand Reanimator. That combo of yours needs 3 specific cards, with only one of them having another equivalent card. It is too inconsistent to work.
Artifact Lands: Um, no. Ravager Affinity was the most broken Standard deck since the Urza Block. Think of how much more broken it would be with all of the Scars of Mirrodin cards. It would easily break the Turn 4 Rule and warp the format to the point at which people would be playing maindeck Stony Silence to answer it.
Modern being a Midrange format: Last time I checked, Modern was a combo format, not a midrange format.
You may be forgetting that Dark Depths+Thopter/Sword was what made it broken, not just one or the other.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.