Dig Through Time possibly shouldn't have been banned so early, but it would most likely have caused a problem pretty soon after Cruise and Pod were banned. It is almost 100% certain. So in my honest opinion, I think it was premature, but Dig definitely would have earned its spot on the Ban List eventually (sooner, not later, lol)
Yeah, that was exactly my point. We didn't have a chance to see it in action without the shadow of Treasure Cruise. The card is very strong and it could have been broken to the point of getting banned but it didn't even have the chance to do so.
This discussion about DTT being fair is kind of puzzling to me. Can anyone think of how bloody powerful UR Phoenix would be with DTT?!
I think this is a good example to showcase the difference between the cards.
I am pretty sure DTT would be tried in Phoenix but I don't think it would be as good as you say, and I am pretty sure nobody would play 4 copies, paying UU to get 2 cards (1 spell) could be worse than playing 2 U cantrips like Serum Visions both for triggering Phoenix or to flip TiTi. Yes, the card is powerful but its nature doesn't really help with the Phoenix or TiTi plan of casting many spells per turn.
Treasure Cruise on the other hand would be insane in Phoenix and most likely 4 copies would be played, from turns 3+ it is the replacement for any cantrip, same cost (U) but you draw 3, doesn't slow you down regarding spells/mana spent and it nets better card advantage, it's exactly the kind of card any Xerox deck wants
@headminerve Yeah, in Jeskai Ascendancy both cards were replaceable but as I said , this is something special about that deck that doesn't apply to any other deck as no other deck could make the switch so easily, Burn was never going to be able to play Dig and I doubt it would even do it if it could (I think I would rather have Light up the Stage for 1 mana than DTT for 2 in burn).
As I said, I think the card promotes decks that are not seeing much play now as I believe it doesn't fit that well in proactive strategies like Phoenix. I know it probably won't be unbanned anytime soon but I wanted to ask what was the perception for someone who plays no banlist modern. There are other cards in the banlist that I think could help slowing down the overall format speed and I would welcome in Modern (SFM and Punishing Fire mainly).
Overall I think Modern would be more enjoyable if it slowed down a bit as right now it feels like there are too many archetypes trying to goldfish, fortunately some decks like BG are trying to slow them down, but these decks are a minority.
WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck
It's not quite what they said, and they'd probably have a refined judgement if the community asked them today. DTT is one of the best in its category (i.e. "blue tutors"), it doesn't go in every deck but the decks where it goes suddenly get a huge boost. It's in the same vein as Faithless Looting or Gitaxian Probe in that regard : it's not a wincon but a card that tremendously helps you win by adding consistency to your game plan. If the card was in Modern, players would keep complaining about it and it would constantly be on our "watchlist", which is certainly not a spot where players like to be when we take a look at how much we've been talking about Looting and Stirrings these last couple years.
I have to disagree:
They call it card draw and mention how efficient it is throughout the whole announcement, no mention to hand sculpting or any other usual term for card selection.
They mention Delver, Burn and Jeskai Ascendancy, no mention to Twin or Scapeshift, the only decks that played DTT over TC.
They state how replaceable they are with one another, I will explain below why I think this isn't true.
In Modern, these cards are easy replacements for one another—while a Delver deck might use Treasure Cruise over Dig Through Time, banning one but not the other would do little to change the deck. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned.
Why I think DTT and TC are not replaceable with one another:
Treasure Cruise is insane in decks that play 4 copies of many replaceable effects, as these decks can make a much better use of raw draw than any other deck (Burn and Storm fit very well in this category).
Dig Through Time is more useful in decks where you have more diversity between threats and answers, in those decks, card selection becomes much more useful (drawing counterspells vs aggro is not great), this applies very well to combo decks that rely on 1 or 2 specific cards to go off (RUG Scapeshifft and Twin come to mind).
These 2 cards are different and are not replaceable with one another in every deck (they can in some specific decks like Jeskai Ascendancy where paying extra blue is not a problem and drawing 2 nonlands + 1 land is basically the same as drawing those 2 nonlands, but this is not the norm)
Jeskai Ascendancy is a bit different from everything else, it's the only deck to have played both TC and DTT, even then, pros didn't agree on what was best, DTT was either 4 or 0 but all decks played at least 1 copy of TC, sometimes 4 (check Worlds 2014 decklists).
I think DTT could be fair enough for Modern and is a fun card to play with, you can't play it in the early turns and requires double blue so it's not easily splashable. It also works as an incentive to play reactive decks instead of proactive ones and I feel like the current metagame has too many proactive decks so is a card that would make me enjoy Modern a bit more.
There is always some new deck for people to complain about. Some new card. You can modify your deck or play a different one. Once this set drops most current decks are probably going to be made lower tier. Granted I do disagree with a lot of their bannings. They essentially ban combo every chance they get. Anything they want to label "Unfun" is banned. Well that's super lame. I don't even like combo but it is part of the game. That new Serra the Benevolent they are printing is stupid oppressive having a permanent emblem worship. They have gotten worse at designing magic sets over the years with the colors not being balanced at all. Blue now does everything with other colors lagging behind in design space. The banning of Gitaxian Probe is uncalled for. I'm looking at the ban list now. I see a lot of killed decks that I used to play against.
While I agree with the basic sentiment, it is always sad to see decks get pushed out of a format by a ban, I think playing some NBLM might give you some perspective on why certain certain cards need to be on the ban list. Gitaxian Probe is honestly worthy of a ban. It's less about it fitting into every deck (because it really, really doesn't) and more about how it makes "all in" decks way too safe. While there are some questionables on the list right now, by and large it's a pretty decent pick of the cards that break, warp, or make the format toxic to play in for most players. Sure, Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain really have no business on the banned list, and Green Sun's Zenith, Splinter Twin, Hypergensis, Birthing Pod, and Punishing Fire are all pretty in line with the current levels of power in Modern. However, even though Ascendancy Combo died because of Treasure Cruise's banning, it's definitely for the best.
Tunneling in on the decks that have been banned away without thinking about how those decks affected the format as a whole is a bit disingenuous.
I am curious since you commented on the Treasure Cruise ban, do you think Dig Through Time would be in line with the current power levels in Modern? When TC and DTT were banned, WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck (which I disagree). It would be interesting to have an idea on how powerful the card is perceived by someone who has a chance to play NBLM as I think it would be in the same group as Birthing Pod, Green Sun's Zenith or Punishing Fire
Sure, there could be many reasons affecting GP attendance like the ones you name but before I ran the numbers, all we had is the claim that GP attendance was not dropping and I was curious to know if that was true or not.
Now we have the numbers and we know attendance is actually dropping. The reasons? I don't know, but attendance is dropping and that's a fact. I didn't say we should use GP attendance as correlation of how much players enjoy the format (Ymir said that attendance is not dropping as an indicator of people happiness with the format), but if we were to do so, the results would indicate that people are not engaging with Modern GPs as they did in previous years.
I don't know how you calculated that 18% drop, if we were to compare 2016 vs 2017, these are the numbers I get:
2016 Modern GP average attendance = 1916 players
2017 Modern GP average attendance = 1871 players
So, average attendance from 2016 to 2017 dropped, but only 2%
2018 and 2019 on the other hand, have a significant drop in attendance:
2018 Modern GP average attendance = 1685 players (10% drop vs 2017)
2019 Modern GP average attendance = 1325 players (21% drop vs 2018)
I also noticed that some large GPs (looking at you Vegas), have a great impact on averages, it also happens the other way around with small GPs (there is one in Brazil with less than 800 players), so maybe it would be more interesting to exclude those when analysing averages.
Here is the excel file I am using in case anyone else wants to dig into it and wants to segment by seasons, years, months, etc
I don't know how to attach a file here, so I uploaded to Drive and made it public, let me know if there is a better way to share this file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOPtFxnbwiUfc5BjOP_e1gmSh3wAvqd2/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: There were some GPs that started one month and were finished in the next month, for the sake of simplicity I have grouped all GPs based on the month of the first date (a GP starting the 31st of March and ending the 2nd of April would be counted in March)
If people bring in arguments of how there are many players who have "completely been driven out of the format", then these people might as well come with some data to back this up, because just claiming it is not enough.
Again, for the people in THIS forum, the result is rather clear. Attendance in events has not dropped as well, so I am not sure where this narrative is coming from, but I guess personal experience is a strong feeling.
This is a metric we can objectively measure and is well documented. I just took the numbers from season 2014-2015 onwards, excluded team events and the results seem to indicate that the average attendance for Modern GPs is going down in the last seasons.
If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.
ATTACHMENTS
Modern Attendance
Attendance evolution
Private Mod Note
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Yeah, that was exactly my point. We didn't have a chance to see it in action without the shadow of Treasure Cruise. The card is very strong and it could have been broken to the point of getting banned but it didn't even have the chance to do so.
I think this is a good example to showcase the difference between the cards.
I am pretty sure DTT would be tried in Phoenix but I don't think it would be as good as you say, and I am pretty sure nobody would play 4 copies, paying UU to get 2 cards (1 spell) could be worse than playing 2 U cantrips like Serum Visions both for triggering Phoenix or to flip TiTi. Yes, the card is powerful but its nature doesn't really help with the Phoenix or TiTi plan of casting many spells per turn.
Treasure Cruise on the other hand would be insane in Phoenix and most likely 4 copies would be played, from turns 3+ it is the replacement for any cantrip, same cost (U) but you draw 3, doesn't slow you down regarding spells/mana spent and it nets better card advantage, it's exactly the kind of card any Xerox deck wants
@headminerve Yeah, in Jeskai Ascendancy both cards were replaceable but as I said , this is something special about that deck that doesn't apply to any other deck as no other deck could make the switch so easily, Burn was never going to be able to play Dig and I doubt it would even do it if it could (I think I would rather have Light up the Stage for 1 mana than DTT for 2 in burn).
As I said, I think the card promotes decks that are not seeing much play now as I believe it doesn't fit that well in proactive strategies like Phoenix. I know it probably won't be unbanned anytime soon but I wanted to ask what was the perception for someone who plays no banlist modern. There are other cards in the banlist that I think could help slowing down the overall format speed and I would welcome in Modern (SFM and Punishing Fire mainly).
Overall I think Modern would be more enjoyable if it slowed down a bit as right now it feels like there are too many archetypes trying to goldfish, fortunately some decks like BG are trying to slow them down, but these decks are a minority.
I have to disagree:
Why I think DTT and TC are not replaceable with one another:
Jeskai Ascendancy is a bit different from everything else, it's the only deck to have played both TC and DTT, even then, pros didn't agree on what was best, DTT was either 4 or 0 but all decks played at least 1 copy of TC, sometimes 4 (check Worlds 2014 decklists).
I think DTT could be fair enough for Modern and is a fun card to play with, you can't play it in the early turns and requires double blue so it's not easily splashable. It also works as an incentive to play reactive decks instead of proactive ones and I feel like the current metagame has too many proactive decks so is a card that would make me enjoy Modern a bit more.
I am curious since you commented on the Treasure Cruise ban, do you think Dig Through Time would be in line with the current power levels in Modern? When TC and DTT were banned, WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck (which I disagree). It would be interesting to have an idea on how powerful the card is perceived by someone who has a chance to play NBLM as I think it would be in the same group as Birthing Pod, Green Sun's Zenith or Punishing Fire
Now we have the numbers and we know attendance is actually dropping. The reasons? I don't know, but attendance is dropping and that's a fact. I didn't say we should use GP attendance as correlation of how much players enjoy the format (Ymir said that attendance is not dropping as an indicator of people happiness with the format), but if we were to do so, the results would indicate that people are not engaging with Modern GPs as they did in previous years.
I don't know how you calculated that 18% drop, if we were to compare 2016 vs 2017, these are the numbers I get:
2016 Modern GP average attendance = 1916 players
2017 Modern GP average attendance = 1871 players
So, average attendance from 2016 to 2017 dropped, but only 2%
2018 and 2019 on the other hand, have a significant drop in attendance:
2018 Modern GP average attendance = 1685 players (10% drop vs 2017)
2019 Modern GP average attendance = 1325 players (21% drop vs 2018)
I also noticed that some large GPs (looking at you Vegas), have a great impact on averages, it also happens the other way around with small GPs (there is one in Brazil with less than 800 players), so maybe it would be more interesting to exclude those when analysing averages.
Here is the excel file I am using in case anyone else wants to dig into it and wants to segment by seasons, years, months, etc
I don't know how to attach a file here, so I uploaded to Drive and made it public, let me know if there is a better way to share this file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOPtFxnbwiUfc5BjOP_e1gmSh3wAvqd2/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: There were some GPs that started one month and were finished in the next month, for the sake of simplicity I have grouped all GPs based on the month of the first date (a GP starting the 31st of March and ending the 2nd of April would be counted in March)
If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.