Something that's kind of funny about this hypothetical format, is that the only counters blue decks would need would be Misstep, pierce, and Spell snare. There really wouldn't be anything else worth countering, since all the combo decks would combo out with 1 and 2 mana spells, all the control decks would be dropping mystics, preordains, confidants, etc, and all the aggro decks would also be full of 1 and 2 drops, and pierce would ideally take care of everything else until you set up a countertop lock or combo win.
That's been true for many a format. Nothing new here.
While not as fast as Legacy Dredge, would dredge be potentially viable, or just not explosive enough. Overextended Dredge basically WAS legacy dredge.
no because it is way to reliant on a good draw to even go off on turn 3. A removal spell or a counterspell and the deck won't even go off on turn 3. I mean it relies on hedron crab lol.
That deck would be absolutely bonkers, folks. Like, way stronger than Zoo with Clamp, or Hypergenesis. Storm, affinity, maybe shoal. Those are the only decks that would be comparable, and I'm not sure any of them would be.
Nah, BB wasn't ran in old 1.x because it is slow. Remember the 1.x ban list for this card pool was Skullclamp, top, vial, and disciple of the vault. Faeries was Pretty bad in that format because it lost to aggro and control badly. It looks good on paper, but that deck would be bad. The format would be Dark Depths, Zoo, and UWx gifts decks. Then 200 or so tier 1.5/2 decks.
Something that's kind of funny about this hypothetical format, is that the only counters blue decks would need would be Misstep, pierce, and Spell snare. There really wouldn't be anything else worth countering, since all the combo decks would combo out with 1 and 2 mana spells, all the control decks would be dropping mystics, preordains, confidants, etc, and all the aggro decks would also be full of 1 and 2 drops, and pierce would ideally take care of everything else until you set up a countertop lock or combo win.
Honestly that is mostly the curve of modern sans the random 3-4 drops that show up in some decks. Control decks would be able to run bigger though which would be a good thing. The only absolutely broken card on the ban list is skullclamp. The rest of the cards on the ban list are combo or control cards that wotc didn't want to be in the meta so that zoo would be the best deck.
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Nah, BB wasn't ran in old 1.x because it is slow. Remember the 1.x ban list for this card pool was Skullclamp, top, vial, and disciple of the vault. Faeries was Pretty bad in that format because it lost to aggro and control badly. It looks good on paper, but that deck would be bad. The format would be Dark Depths, Zoo, and UWx gifts decks. Then 200 or so tier 1.5/2 decks.
I have an exercise for you then. Get a competent pilot, and have them play this against you a few times:
you can't just throw a bunch of cards together and make a good deck unless its an aggro deck like zoo. Several people tried faerie decks just like this in 1.x(without MM and skullclamp) and they were awful. Take out the skullclamp and this deck isn't even a mediocre faerie deck. Modern zoo with the ban list would wreck this deck. Heck storm would probably wreck this deck because of all of the over conditional counterspells. It doesn't even have spellstutter sprite in it lol.
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you can't just throw a bunch of cards together and make a good deck unless its an aggro deck like zoo. Several people tried faerie decks just like this in 1.x(without MM and skullclamp) and they were awful. Take out the skullclamp and this deck isn't even a mediocre faerie deck. Modern zoo with the ban list would wreck this deck. Heck storm would probably wreck this deck because of all of the over conditional counterspells. It doesn't even have spellstutter sprite in it lol.
..... The first card in the list is Spellstutter Sprite.
And since you know SO MUCH about modern and how Zoo is incredibly overpowered and there's absolutely no way any other deck could possibly compete in any way shape or form, how could you not have any inkling of how strong this deck would be? Have you ever played a game where one person had blossom+clamp going? Or blossom+clamp+jitte, or that plus jace, with counterspell backup?
Seriously, some variation of this deck would be insane, way, WAYYYY more insane than "play wild nacatl"
Easy answer: U/W stoneforge/countertop. Misstep, disrupting shoal the countertop engine with the inevitability of jace and stoneforge into batterskull? Maybe UB topFae? Even the combo decks would be screwed without the nuts.
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
This is more or less whan an affinity deck in legacy looks like minus the skullclamps. Legacy affinity doesn't even use any cards with the affinity mechanic anymore outside of thoughtcast. Some don't even run disciple either..All thanks to Scars block. It kills fast and with several different ways.
Combo Elves would probably be the best deck, its really really strong and fairly resilient cause it can just vomit a bunch of Elves onto the board and beat down. And while a lot of the combo pieces are 1 cmc, the problem is that they are so powerful that if one of them sticks, you basically win. DDT and Hypergenesis would also be very powerful also Affinity with Skullclamp, affinity is really good right now and with it getting back some of the key pieces that made it so broken it would definitely be a competitor. I don't even think any real control decks would be good because they have no real way of dealing with DDT especially since the best answers to DD are a 1 cmc which can be stopped with MM. Also the combo decks in the format are so fast and most of them are relatively resilient and most of them are immune to the only real free counter, MM.
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On Mono Black in Commander:
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But whomever your commander is, Cabal Coffers is really in charge.
Okay. I just finished running this through my normal Modern gauntlet (Tribal Zoo, Big Zoo, R Affinity, UW Affinity, Twin, UR Storm, BR Ad Nauseam, UWb Teachings, BUGr Gifts, Death Cloud) and it failed miserably against the current field with the banned list. It went about 50/50 with Twin, AN, and Storm, it lost horribly against both Zoo variants, got smashed by both Affinity variants, and it durdled against Teachings, Gifts, and Death Cloud. (This is without side boarding, since you didn't provide one.)
It can't keep up with any sort of card advantage engine, like Life from the Loam/Raven's Crime. It can't deal with any of the hyper agressive strategies because its counter suite is geared toward beating combo. It can't deal with Snapcaster Mage efficiently. It can't handle any sort of early disruption. It runs out of gas really fast. The Clamp/Blossom engine was cute, but ultimately rather weak. Clamp gets ridiculous when you're drawing 10+ cards in a turn off of it, not when you draw 2.
Frankly, without the banned list this deck would be even worse. There would be no way for it to keep up with an DDT Combo deck with Clamp and Disciple. It has no way to effectively keep up against Clamp Affinity (which when played correctly can achieve turn 2 kills with a surprising amount of regularity). It definitely can't play through a CounterTop lock. If it can't even keep up with neutered Zoo decks, how would it handle GSZ CounterCats Zoo?
Frankly, your list is an excellent argument for allowing JtMS, Bitterblossom, and Visions back into the normal card pool.
Okay. I just finished running this through my normal Modern gauntlet (Tribal Zoo, Big Zoo, R Affinity, UW Affinity, Twin, UR Storm, BR Ad Nauseam, UWb Teachings, BUGr Gifts, Death Cloud) and it failed miserably against the current field with the banned list. It went about 50/50 with Twin, AN, and Storm, it lost horribly against both Zoo variants, got smashed by both Affinity variants, and it durdled against Teachings, Gifts, and Death Cloud. (This is without side boarding, since you didn't provide one.)
It can't keep up with any sort of card advantage engine, like Life from the Loam/Raven's Crime. It can't deal with any of the hyper agressive strategies because its counter suite is geared toward beating combo. It can't deal with Snapcaster Mage efficiently. It can't handle any sort of early disruption. It runs out of gas really fast. The Clamp/Blossom engine was cute, but ultimately rather weak. Clamp gets ridiculous when you're drawing 10+ cards in a turn off of it, not when you draw 2.
Frankly, without the banned list this deck would be even worse. There would be no way for it to keep up with an DDT Combo deck with Clamp and Disciple. It has no way to effectively keep up against Clamp Affinity (which when played correctly can achieve turn 2 kills with a surprising amount of regularity). It definitely can't play through a CounterTop lock. If it can't even keep up with neutered Zoo decks, how would it handle GSZ CounterCats Zoo?
Frankly, your list is an excellent argument for allowing JtMS, Bitterblossom, and Visions back into the normal card pool.
Wow. I think it's really cool that you did that. This is the model of what intelligent discussion on this forum should look like.
People just want to come to these forums to spew out their predeterminted opinions on all subjects. Here's a man who's actually doing some real work.
Combo Elves would probably be the best deck, its really really strong and fairly resilient cause it can just vomit a bunch of Elves onto the board and beat down. And while a lot of the combo pieces are 1 cmc, the problem is that they are so powerful that if one of them sticks, you basically win. DDT and Hypergenesis would also be very powerful also Affinity with Skullclamp, affinity is really good right now and with it getting back some of the key pieces that made it so broken it would definitely be a competitor. I don't even think any real control decks would be good because they have no real way of dealing with DDT especially since the best answers to DD are a 1 cmc which can be stopped with MM. Also the combo decks in the format are so fast and most of them are relatively resilient and most of them are immune to the only real free counter, MM.
Affinity with skullclamp is still affiity and we have 100 cards that make them lose in the format. Combo elves are way to weak to turn 1 mox + chalice of the void not to mention cards like engineered explosives and hell red/black sweepers. Night of souls betrayal. They would be tier 2 in the current format except the beat the crap out of zoo.(source: old extended results)
Dark depths would keep hypergen down like it did in the old extended, because they fill the same niche and DD can run thoughtseize, venny and spell pierce to deal with that deck.
Control would thrive because it is pretty good against the combo decks just as long as some one intelligent designed it and some one who understands the format is playing it.(source me beating hypergen and DD all day long with LSV's UW gifts in old extended)
Remember that the only old cards that were on the ban list were aether vial, disciple of the vault, skullclamp, and top. Aether vial obviously didn't belong as we have discovered now which is a good reason that several cards that never got a chance to be played in modern should come off. MM is a new card that might should be banned although it didn't really get a chance in modern either. It would mostly likely be good against zoo and storm but bad against control and other combo decks. JTMS did exist in extended and saw some play in decks with chrome mox mostly, it really doesn't belong on the ban list. SFM saw some extended play just to look for jitte, but it is quite possible that batterskull made it too good and it probably should not be in the same format with sword of the meek.
Sword of the meek is quite fine as long as dark depths is banned, and decks have to use Muddle the Mixture or gifts ungiven to find it since these are really slow. I mean that synergy is pretty slow, and only really effective after turn 4. It was part of what made control decks viable in extended because they could throw a copy of each card in their deck(kinda like people are doing with unburial rites and Iona) and dedicate the rest of their deck to answers. You had a win condition that would eventually get you there unless it got RFG.(which is tons easier now that every deck has access to surgical extraction)
It would be legacy without force of will to keep combo in check. In other words, it would degenerate as ****.
This is not true. Some cards obviously belong on the ban list, but use MRD-Forward extended as an example. Even with good combo decks and good control decks zoo still had the most top 8s in big events. Even stuff like boros and Cruel control top 8'ed some GP events. We had burn decks and all sorts of other budget decks that could get it done.
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Affinity with skullclamp is still affiity and we have 100 cards that make them lose in the format. Combo elves are way to weak to turn 1 mox + chalice of the void not to mention cards like engineered explosives and hell red/black sweepers. Night of souls betrayal. They would be tier 2 in the current format except the beat the crap out of zoo.(source: old extended results)
Dark depths would keep hypergen down like it did in the old extended, because they fill the same niche and DD can run thoughtseize, venny and spell pierce to deal with that deck.
Control would thrive because it is pretty good against the combo decks just as long as some one intelligent designed it and some one who understands the format is playing it.(source me beating hypergen and DD all day long with LSV's UW gifts in old extended)
Remember that the only old cards that were on the ban list were aether vial, disciple of the vault, skullclamp, and top. Aether vial obviously didn't belong as we have discovered now which is a good reason that several cards that never got a chance to be played in modern should come off. MM is a new card that might should be banned although it didn't really get a chance in modern either. It would mostly likely be good against zoo and storm but bad against control and other combo decks. JTMS did exist in extended and saw some play in decks with chrome mox mostly, it really doesn't belong on the ban list. SFM saw some extended play just to look for jitte, but it is quite possible that batterskull made it too good and it probably should not be in the same format with sword of the meek.
Sword of the meek is quite fine as long as dark depths is banned, and decks have to use Muddle the Mixture or gifts ungiven to find it since these are really slow. I mean that synergy is pretty slow, and only really effective after turn 4. It was part of what made control decks viable in extended because they could throw a copy of each card in their deck(kinda like people are doing with unburial rites and Iona) and dedicate the rest of their deck to answers. You had a win condition that would eventually get you there unless it got RFG.(which is tons easier now that every deck has access to surgical extraction)
Are you serious? Combo elves was Tier 1 in old extended, it won multiple events, its just extremely hard to play and thats why it wasn't hugely popular. And now that it has even better tools like GSZ and with Skullclamp? I don't see how it wouldn't be extremely powerful. I guarantee that the format would be fast combo and Skullclamp decks doing the most degenerate things possible. Control would be absolute trash without things like FoW to keep combo in check because there are definitely decks out there that can straight up kill you in the first 2 turns. Not to mention DDT gets so much better with MM since like I said, PtE and Repeal are the best answers to DD and MM stops both of them.
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On Mono Black in Commander:
Quote from BlackJack68 »
But whomever your commander is, Cabal Coffers is really in charge.
Are you serious? Combo elves was Tier 1 in old extended, it won multiple events, its just extremely hard to play and thats why it wasn't hugely popular. And now that it has even better tools like GSZ and with Skullclamp? I don't see how it wouldn't be extremely powerful. I guarantee that the format would be fast combo and Skullclamp decks doing the most degenerate things possible. Control would be absolute trash without things like FoW to keep combo in check because there are definitely decks out there that can straight up kill you in the first 2 turns. Not to mention DDT gets so much better with MM since like I said, PtE and Repeal are the best answers to DD and MM stops both of them.
DD ran chalice of the void set to 1 to stop PTE and repeal. This is why I always ran echoing truth, celestial purge and into the roil as singletons in teachings. It also worked pretty good with UW gifts. I'n not arguing that DD is really powerful(although it isn't hard to beat), and I'm not arguing that skullclmap isn't busted.(but it can be destroyed quite easily)
What I'm saying is take the old extended ban list add dark depths and hypergen and we have a kickass format. Also take aether vial off of that list because it has proven that it won't be broken like wotc though it would be.
SO that would leave a banlist of disciple of the vault, top, DD, hypergen, skulclamp, and SFM. This is the ban list that modern should have started with, and the meta should have been allowed to try to balance out. After 6 months if one deck is clearly stronger than the rest(as zoo is now) then you can start taking pot shots at it with the ban list.
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T1: Hypergen, Elves, Infect (in that order).
T2: Storm, Affinity, Dredge (in that order).
There is no tier 1.5, and anything lower is probably unplayable. I mean, this doesn't factor for how MM would affect the format; since it would be the first time that the card would interact with infect. However, the tier 1 decks would just run it too.
I think the format would be VERY luck based, but would gradually progress into a vintage style format. Chancellor of the Annex would be super relevant in Hypergen, to the point where hypergen would probably become the most disruptive deck around. I could even see Junk Hypergen, with MB Mana Tithe, Mental Misstep, Chancellor of the Annex, and Thoughtseize. In case you haven't notice yet; I actually kinda want to play that format- even if Hypergen would be degenerate beyond belief. The progression in the arms race would be elves with Autumn's Veil, possibly even Chancellor of the Tangle. Hypergen mirrors, in my opinion, would be 50:50 between mindless luck fests, and epic high power level matches with bomb after bomb hitting the table, and constant powerful effects.
Then the arm's race would just reset when Infect just consistently races those two decks when they fail to find disruption.
I really, really want to play this format. I want to try vintage, but can't afford it, so...
EDIT: Damn, didn't even consider the possible SCM+Skull Clamp interaction. The question with that deck is; can it disrupt combo enough?
Double Edit: Just remember Chrome Mox would become legal. Control would stand a solid chance, but I don't think it'd be able to consistently weather combo decks.
Hypergenesis, tied with infect shoal
Then Affinity
Everything else pretty far down
A good affinity deck COULD beat hypergenesis but not infect shoal consistently
Really all 3 would dominate and personal skill+ God hands would determine the winner.
lol dark depths would rock all three of the decks you mentioned. Combo decks are awful against dark depths, and it was good enough to push hypergen out of extended so I would assume that it still is. Zoo was still dominant in a field with elves, affinity, and hypergen. It was also pretty good against infect shoal when it was legal in modern. You cannot push zoo out of the format. It hasn't happened in the history of extended play against some of the most busted combo decks of all time, and it's not going to happen in modern unless they ban at least 5 more zoo cards.
In this format control would have the tools that it needs to be plenty competitive. I mean look how much control has lost......You can't take an old extended control deck for this same card pool and construct it without at least 2-3 of the cards on the ban list. These control decks dealt with hypergen, elves, and DD. Adding in 2-3 new cards and skullclamp doesn't make that big of a difference to a good control deck.
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lol dark depths would rock all three of the decks you mentioned. Combo decks are awful against dark depths, and it was good enough to push hypergen out of extended so I would assume that it still is. Zoo was still dominant in a field with elves, affinity, and hypergen. It was also pretty good against infect shoal when it was legal in modern. You cannot push zoo out of the format. It hasn't happened in the history of extended play against some of the most busted combo decks of all time, and it's not going to happen in modern unless they ban at least 5 more zoo cards.
In this format control would have the tools that it needs to be plenty competitive. I mean look how much control has lost......You can't take an old extended control deck for this same card pool and construct it without at least 2-3 of the cards on the ban list. These control decks dealt with hypergen, elves, and DD. Adding in 2-3 new cards and skullclamp doesn't make that big of a difference to a good control deck.
Honestly curious, how does dark depths drop the token before turn 3-4? I can imagine some ways but I am not sure of the most efficient.
Honestly curious, how does dark depths drop the token before turn 3-4? I can imagine some ways but I am not sure of the most efficient.
You can easily do it on turn two with a mox or an urborg. You can also do it at instant speed at your opponents endstep or in response to removal. Having thoughtseize and spell pierce allowed that deck to wreck other combo decks.
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if skullclamp is the only banned card, the format would be pretty balanced.
No, it really wouldn't. In terms of being fair and balanced (but with no restrictions on speed) you need Clamp, Disciple of the Vault, Hypergenesis, Dark Depths, and Stoneforge Mystic banned. Hypergenesis can go off on turn 1 with frightening regularity (Land, Chancellor of the Tangle, Simian Spirit Guide, Violent Outburst for example), Dark Depths because it's about as over the top as Emrakul but requires far less from the deck builders, Disciple needs to be banned because it makes Affinity's turn 2 kills way too consistent, Clamp is glaring design mistake, as is Stoneforge Mystic.
In this format, combo would be king. R/x Storm, Shoal Infect, and Pyromancer's Ascension would probably be your top decks in the initial three months. Once everyone figured out their hate options, I suspect it would end up being UGb Gifts/Post, Zoo, Shoal Infect, and RWU Affinity as Tier 1.
if skullclamp is the only banned card, the format would be pretty balanced.
So going from a format thats based around creatures and apparently isnt balanced, would all of a sudden become balanced if you had a format void of creatures and played speel heavy combo decks.
The format is closer to being balanced now then it would be if there was no ban list. Now its aggro>combo>control. Remove the ban list it would become Combo>...................................................control>.................................aggro. It would go from heavy creature format to no need for creatures at all.
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That's been true for many a format. Nothing new here.
no because it is way to reliant on a good draw to even go off on turn 3. A removal spell or a counterspell and the deck won't even go off on turn 3. I mean it relies on hedron crab lol.
Nah, BB wasn't ran in old 1.x because it is slow. Remember the 1.x ban list for this card pool was Skullclamp, top, vial, and disciple of the vault. Faeries was Pretty bad in that format because it lost to aggro and control badly. It looks good on paper, but that deck would be bad. The format would be Dark Depths, Zoo, and UWx gifts decks. Then 200 or so tier 1.5/2 decks.
Honestly that is mostly the curve of modern sans the random 3-4 drops that show up in some decks. Control decks would be able to run bigger though which would be a good thing. The only absolutely broken card on the ban list is skullclamp. The rest of the cards on the ban list are combo or control cards that wotc didn't want to be in the meta so that zoo would be the best deck.
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Thomas Jefferson
4 Mutavault
4 Bitterblossom
4 Mental Misstep
4 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Skullclamp
1 Dark Confidant
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Chrome Mox
1 Repeal
3 Dismember
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Watery Grave
4 River of Tears
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Island
you can't just throw a bunch of cards together and make a good deck unless its an aggro deck like zoo. Several people tried faerie decks just like this in 1.x(without MM and skullclamp) and they were awful. Take out the skullclamp and this deck isn't even a mediocre faerie deck. Modern zoo with the ban list would wreck this deck. Heck storm would probably wreck this deck because of all of the over conditional counterspells. It doesn't even have spellstutter sprite in it lol.
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..... The first card in the list is Spellstutter Sprite.
And since you know SO MUCH about modern and how Zoo is incredibly overpowered and there's absolutely no way any other deck could possibly compete in any way shape or form, how could you not have any inkling of how strong this deck would be? Have you ever played a game where one person had blossom+clamp going? Or blossom+clamp+jitte, or that plus jace, with counterspell backup?
Seriously, some variation of this deck would be insane, way, WAYYYY more insane than "play wild nacatl"
4 Ornithopter
2 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Discipe of the Vault
4 Master of Etherium
4 Skullclamp
4 Mox Opal
2 Cranial Plating
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Glimmervoid
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Seat of Synod
4 Vault of whispers
BUG Dredge BUG]
WUBRG Storm WUBRG
UBR FaerieStalker UBR
EDH
Sygg, River Cutthroat (1vs1)
Maga, Traitor to Mortals (multiplayer)
Okay. I just finished running this through my normal Modern gauntlet (Tribal Zoo, Big Zoo, R Affinity, UW Affinity, Twin, UR Storm, BR Ad Nauseam, UWb Teachings, BUGr Gifts, Death Cloud) and it failed miserably against the current field with the banned list. It went about 50/50 with Twin, AN, and Storm, it lost horribly against both Zoo variants, got smashed by both Affinity variants, and it durdled against Teachings, Gifts, and Death Cloud. (This is without side boarding, since you didn't provide one.)
It can't keep up with any sort of card advantage engine, like Life from the Loam/Raven's Crime. It can't deal with any of the hyper agressive strategies because its counter suite is geared toward beating combo. It can't deal with Snapcaster Mage efficiently. It can't handle any sort of early disruption. It runs out of gas really fast. The Clamp/Blossom engine was cute, but ultimately rather weak. Clamp gets ridiculous when you're drawing 10+ cards in a turn off of it, not when you draw 2.
Frankly, without the banned list this deck would be even worse. There would be no way for it to keep up with an DDT Combo deck with Clamp and Disciple. It has no way to effectively keep up against Clamp Affinity (which when played correctly can achieve turn 2 kills with a surprising amount of regularity). It definitely can't play through a CounterTop lock. If it can't even keep up with neutered Zoo decks, how would it handle GSZ CounterCats Zoo?
Frankly, your list is an excellent argument for allowing JtMS, Bitterblossom, and Visions back into the normal card pool.
Wow. I think it's really cool that you did that. This is the model of what intelligent discussion on this forum should look like.
People just want to come to these forums to spew out their predeterminted opinions on all subjects. Here's a man who's actually doing some real work.
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
Standard:
UW UW Pike
Mtgo Pauper:
U Tempo
Mtgo Block:
RW Aggro
I'm 14, shout-outs to all other young magic players out there!
Quotes:
Affinity with skullclamp is still affiity and we have 100 cards that make them lose in the format. Combo elves are way to weak to turn 1 mox + chalice of the void not to mention cards like engineered explosives and hell red/black sweepers. Night of souls betrayal. They would be tier 2 in the current format except the beat the crap out of zoo.(source: old extended results)
Dark depths would keep hypergen down like it did in the old extended, because they fill the same niche and DD can run thoughtseize, venny and spell pierce to deal with that deck.
Control would thrive because it is pretty good against the combo decks just as long as some one intelligent designed it and some one who understands the format is playing it.(source me beating hypergen and DD all day long with LSV's UW gifts in old extended)
Remember that the only old cards that were on the ban list were aether vial, disciple of the vault, skullclamp, and top. Aether vial obviously didn't belong as we have discovered now which is a good reason that several cards that never got a chance to be played in modern should come off. MM is a new card that might should be banned although it didn't really get a chance in modern either. It would mostly likely be good against zoo and storm but bad against control and other combo decks. JTMS did exist in extended and saw some play in decks with chrome mox mostly, it really doesn't belong on the ban list. SFM saw some extended play just to look for jitte, but it is quite possible that batterskull made it too good and it probably should not be in the same format with sword of the meek.
Sword of the meek is quite fine as long as dark depths is banned, and decks have to use Muddle the Mixture or gifts ungiven to find it since these are really slow. I mean that synergy is pretty slow, and only really effective after turn 4. It was part of what made control decks viable in extended because they could throw a copy of each card in their deck(kinda like people are doing with unburial rites and Iona) and dedicate the rest of their deck to answers. You had a win condition that would eventually get you there unless it got RFG.(which is tons easier now that every deck has access to surgical extraction)
This is not true. Some cards obviously belong on the ban list, but use MRD-Forward extended as an example. Even with good combo decks and good control decks zoo still had the most top 8s in big events. Even stuff like boros and Cruel control top 8'ed some GP events. We had burn decks and all sorts of other budget decks that could get it done.
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Are you serious? Combo elves was Tier 1 in old extended, it won multiple events, its just extremely hard to play and thats why it wasn't hugely popular. And now that it has even better tools like GSZ and with Skullclamp? I don't see how it wouldn't be extremely powerful. I guarantee that the format would be fast combo and Skullclamp decks doing the most degenerate things possible. Control would be absolute trash without things like FoW to keep combo in check because there are definitely decks out there that can straight up kill you in the first 2 turns. Not to mention DDT gets so much better with MM since like I said, PtE and Repeal are the best answers to DD and MM stops both of them.
DD ran chalice of the void set to 1 to stop PTE and repeal. This is why I always ran echoing truth, celestial purge and into the roil as singletons in teachings. It also worked pretty good with UW gifts. I'n not arguing that DD is really powerful(although it isn't hard to beat), and I'm not arguing that skullclmap isn't busted.(but it can be destroyed quite easily)
What I'm saying is take the old extended ban list add dark depths and hypergen and we have a kickass format. Also take aether vial off of that list because it has proven that it won't be broken like wotc though it would be.
SO that would leave a banlist of disciple of the vault, top, DD, hypergen, skulclamp, and SFM. This is the ban list that modern should have started with, and the meta should have been allowed to try to balance out. After 6 months if one deck is clearly stronger than the rest(as zoo is now) then you can start taking pot shots at it with the ban list.
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Then Affinity
Everything else pretty far down
A good affinity deck COULD beat hypergenesis but not infect shoal consistently
Really all 3 would dominate and personal skill+ God hands would determine the winner.
T2: Storm, Affinity, Dredge (in that order).
There is no tier 1.5, and anything lower is probably unplayable. I mean, this doesn't factor for how MM would affect the format; since it would be the first time that the card would interact with infect. However, the tier 1 decks would just run it too.
I think the format would be VERY luck based, but would gradually progress into a vintage style format. Chancellor of the Annex would be super relevant in Hypergen, to the point where hypergen would probably become the most disruptive deck around. I could even see Junk Hypergen, with MB Mana Tithe, Mental Misstep, Chancellor of the Annex, and Thoughtseize. In case you haven't notice yet; I actually kinda want to play that format- even if Hypergen would be degenerate beyond belief. The progression in the arms race would be elves with Autumn's Veil, possibly even Chancellor of the Tangle. Hypergen mirrors, in my opinion, would be 50:50 between mindless luck fests, and epic high power level matches with bomb after bomb hitting the table, and constant powerful effects.
Then the arm's race would just reset when Infect just consistently races those two decks when they fail to find disruption.
I really, really want to play this format. I want to try vintage, but can't afford it, so...
EDIT: Damn, didn't even consider the possible SCM+Skull Clamp interaction. The question with that deck is; can it disrupt combo enough?
Double Edit: Just remember Chrome Mox would become legal. Control would stand a solid chance, but I don't think it'd be able to consistently weather combo decks.
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lol dark depths would rock all three of the decks you mentioned. Combo decks are awful against dark depths, and it was good enough to push hypergen out of extended so I would assume that it still is. Zoo was still dominant in a field with elves, affinity, and hypergen. It was also pretty good against infect shoal when it was legal in modern. You cannot push zoo out of the format. It hasn't happened in the history of extended play against some of the most busted combo decks of all time, and it's not going to happen in modern unless they ban at least 5 more zoo cards.
In this format control would have the tools that it needs to be plenty competitive. I mean look how much control has lost......You can't take an old extended control deck for this same card pool and construct it without at least 2-3 of the cards on the ban list. These control decks dealt with hypergen, elves, and DD. Adding in 2-3 new cards and skullclamp doesn't make that big of a difference to a good control deck.
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Honestly curious, how does dark depths drop the token before turn 3-4? I can imagine some ways but I am not sure of the most efficient.
Then fling for game LOL! :o:o:o
You can easily do it on turn two with a mox or an urborg. You can also do it at instant speed at your opponents endstep or in response to removal. Having thoughtseize and spell pierce allowed that deck to wreck other combo decks.
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No, it really wouldn't. In terms of being fair and balanced (but with no restrictions on speed) you need Clamp, Disciple of the Vault, Hypergenesis, Dark Depths, and Stoneforge Mystic banned. Hypergenesis can go off on turn 1 with frightening regularity (Land, Chancellor of the Tangle, Simian Spirit Guide, Violent Outburst for example), Dark Depths because it's about as over the top as Emrakul but requires far less from the deck builders, Disciple needs to be banned because it makes Affinity's turn 2 kills way too consistent, Clamp is glaring design mistake, as is Stoneforge Mystic.
In this format, combo would be king. R/x Storm, Shoal Infect, and Pyromancer's Ascension would probably be your top decks in the initial three months. Once everyone figured out their hate options, I suspect it would end up being UGb Gifts/Post, Zoo, Shoal Infect, and RWU Affinity as Tier 1.
So going from a format thats based around creatures and apparently isnt balanced, would all of a sudden become balanced if you had a format void of creatures and played speel heavy combo decks.
The format is closer to being balanced now then it would be if there was no ban list. Now its aggro>combo>control. Remove the ban list it would become Combo>...................................................control>.................................aggro. It would go from heavy creature format to no need for creatures at all.