Patrick Dickmann. I didn't play Twin back then. I play Modern since Innistrad. I was about 3 times VERY close of buying into Splinter Twin, since i'm a blue player at heart. I never did it because of many arguements that i won't bore you with.
Back when Twin and Bloom got axed we all felt the same i think. Modern's a ban format because of the PT. We bit the bullet and moved on, despite many of us not particulary happy with how the banlist was being managed.
2 years later. After many fiascos and disagreements with R&D i can conclude that i'm very much on the Splinter Twin unban train. I know important voices like ktkenshinx have said that unbanning Twin would be a step backwards. That was a year ago. Right know we need Twin as the hero we can have, not the one we want.
I'm not going to explain why i think Twin should be unbanned, that's why i linked the article written by a pro and not a random guy. Also, the article gives opinion on other unbannings that people think about.
[On Misstep]: "There's not that many 1 mana spells that are being played though. the cantrips are mediocre and curves are much higher than in legacy!"
There you have it: proof positive that being a pro doesn't mean you can evaluate the format.
Pretty much what we can expect from pro opinions: a few decent insights and just as many misfires. Fun to post when they agree with us, but nothing special.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
[On Misstep]: "There's not that many 1 mana spells that are being played though. the cantrips are mediocre and curves are much higher than in legacy!"
There you have it: proof positive that being a pro doesn't mean you can evaluate the format.
Pretty much what we can expect from pro opinions: a few decent insights and just as many misfires. Fun to post when they agree with us, but nothing special.
Yet he never said he would unban it. Also i want to say that i trust more on the opionion of Patrcik Dickmann and Seth Manfield(who advocated for a Misstep unban earlier) than anyone in this thread or any MTGS thread.
That's why they are pros, they understand the game on another level than ours(the non pros).
[On Misstep]: "There's not that many 1 mana spells that are being played though. the cantrips are mediocre and curves are much higher than in legacy!"
There you have it: proof positive that being a pro doesn't mean you can evaluate the format.
Pretty much what we can expect from pro opinions: a few decent insights and just as many misfires. Fun to post when they agree with us, but nothing special.
Yet he never said he would unban it. Also i want to say that i trust more on the opionion of Patrcik Dickmann and Seth Manfield(who advocated for a Misstep unban earlier) than anyone in this thread or any MTGS thread.
That's why they are pros, they understand the game on another level than ours(the non pros).
Dickmann especially, since he is one of the few pros that actually focuses on Modern as his primary format.
The problem with misstep is that it's very existence means decks that would normally not play it choose to run it as insurance, it becomes too ubiquitous.
I voted for starting with the current banlist without a doubt. Starting without Banlist just takes up too much time. You will have to ban at least 10 cards for sure. Maybe SFM, Jace and BBE stay there without a voice but to me those cards belong there with our current cardpool.
Considering there won't be reprints like Counterspell, Baleful Strix, etc, my intial guess is to go something like this:
Add to Banlist: Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal and Deceiver Exarch.
Remove from Banlist: Splinter Twin, 1 or 2 Artifact Lands and Summer Bloom OR Seething Song.
I've already posted this changes before. However, this is not where i would want to be IDEALLY. What do i mean by this? The format will never be perfect with Splinter Twin available. Why? Because UR/x Twin builds have shown to us that they can be the best deck in the format, and be a "safe" bet to compete at higher level like Grand Prix events or SCG Tour, WMCQ,etc. To me this is just bad because it would make Modern like Legacy in the sense that there´s a "safe" choice for any given metagame. However, i prefer the format to be policed by a control deck that wins on T4 and has a high skill ceiling than a T3 or T2 russian roulette deck.
Also, i'm against adding expansions artifically. The further i would go is to just take out 8th and 9th edition and get rid of the vicious hosers like Moon and Bridge that make up for unfun games. Blood Moon without SSG should be mostly fine though.
With all due respect, this sounds like nothing but opinionated nonsense. If the whole point of this is to re-evaluate the banlist by testing and gathering data, then let the results determine whether these "vicious hosers" are actually ban-worthy rather than anecdotal cases of butthurt. Until then, hook a brother up with whatever you're smoking; I'd love to experience your fantasy world where it's rational to ban SSG/Mox Opal, but artifact lands & summer bloom are totally legit.
[On Misstep]: "There's not that many 1 mana spells that are being played though. the cantrips are mediocre and curves are much higher than in legacy!"
There you have it: proof positive that being a pro doesn't mean you can evaluate the format.
Pretty much what we can expect from pro opinions: a few decent insights and just as many misfires. Fun to post when they agree with us, but nothing special.
Yet he never said he would unban it. Also i want to say that i trust more on the opionion of Patrcik Dickmann and Seth Manfield(who advocated for a Misstep unban earlier) than anyone in this thread or any MTGS thread.
That's why they are pros, they understand the game on another level than ours(the non pros).
Dickmann especially, since he is one of the few pros that actually focuses on Modern as his primary format.
Also, how are we gonna be testing this?
Most of the testing is happening on XMage, and some people are testing on Cockatrice as well. Ultimately, it's whatever platform you can find that other people are willing to use for testing. I'd recommend checking out the discord if you haven't already, as well as voting on the poll if you haven't. Both of those links can be found in the OP.
I voted for starting with the current banlist without a doubt. Starting without Banlist just takes up too much time. You will have to ban at least 10 cards for sure. Maybe SFM, Jace and BBE stay there without a voice but to me those cards belong there with our current cardpool.
Considering there won't be reprints like Counterspell, Baleful Strix, etc, my intial guess is to go something like this:
Add to Banlist: Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal and Deceiver Exarch.
Remove from Banlist: Splinter Twin, 1 or 2 Artifact Lands and Summer Bloom OR Seething Song.
I've already posted this changes before. However, this is not where i would want to be IDEALLY. What do i mean by this? The format will never be perfect with Splinter Twin available. Why? Because UR/x Twin builds have shown to us that they can be the best deck in the format, and be a "safe" bet to compete at higher level like Grand Prix events or SCG Tour, WMCQ,etc. To me this is just bad because it would make Modern like Legacy in the sense that there´s a "safe" choice for any given metagame. However, i prefer the format to be policed by a control deck that wins on T4 and has a high skill ceiling than a T3 or T2 russian roulette deck.
Also, i'm against adding expansions artifically. The further i would go is to just take out 8th and 9th edition and get rid of the vicious hosers like Moon and Bridge that make up for unfun games. Blood Moon without SSG should be mostly fine though.
With all due respect, this sounds like nothing but opinionated nonsense. If the whole point of this is to re-evaluate the banlist by testing and gathering data, then let the results determine whether these "vicious hosers" are actually ban-worthy rather than anecdotal cases of butthurt. Until then, hook a brother up with whatever you're smoking; I'd love to experience your fantasy world where it's rational to ban SSG/Mox Opal, but artifact lands & summer bloom are totally legit.
Ok, you say i'm going for opinionated nonsense and you clearly have bias towards Opal and Bridge/Moon. Seems legit.
First of all, i NEVER said i would ban Moon/Bridge. I said that i'm AGAINST adding expansions, and if anything, we should take expansions out. Bridge and Moon ARE unfun for most people. Make a poll if you don't believe me. You can continue to believe that being Mooned on T2 is so much fun.
Opal and SSG go in the same category as they push the barrier to far towards Fast mana-play. My initial guess of the banlist was to slow down the format to where WOTC wants and keep the nonsense out of the format.
Bloom and Song go in the same category as the departure of SSG would kill many combos. I don't want combo players to not have a home in Modern so naturally i figured that we could give them one of those. Song might be safer without Probe. The 'OR' clause has that magic, you can choose one or the other, it's very pretty much up for debate if you will.
Lastly, Aftifact lands would enable fast starts form Affinity and some random control decks. I think i prefer Lands than Opal since Opal is constatly being used to break the T4 rule, or being played in the ´SB hate Roulette' Affinity that it's explosiveness makes up for lopsided matchups if you don't have enough Stony Silence, Ancient Grudge and/or boatloads of removal.
I feel arguments for and against cards being on the current list could be better saved for the State of Modern thread or Discord. We should be working out the parameters of the testing here, not whether people feel Mox Opal is unfair and needs to be banned.
This criteria just simply still doesn't walk any logical path. We are implementing a turn four rule, and unbanning three different violators of that rule.
We have unbanned Chrome Mox, Seething Song & Dark Depths. We need to remove this turn 4 rule, or reban these cards immediately. It's tremendously difficult for anyone to take this project somewhat seriously with this huge glaring contradiction in methodology.
If you are trying to control the amount of turns played in a given match (which I think is beyond ridiculous if you've been around these forums for more than 30 days, looking at the posts people make), then you better start realizing that all fast mana needs to be heavily evaluated. Which is something that the current Modern banned list has already arbitrarily done by even going as deep as banning Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll.
I voted for starting with the current banlist without a doubt. Starting without Banlist just takes up too much time. You will have to ban at least 10 cards for sure. Maybe SFM, Jace and BBE stay there without a voice but to me those cards belong there with our current cardpool.
Considering there won't be reprints like Counterspell, Baleful Strix, etc, my intial guess is to go something like this:
Add to Banlist: Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal and Deceiver Exarch.
Remove from Banlist: Splinter Twin, 1 or 2 Artifact Lands and Summer Bloom OR Seething Song.
I've already posted this changes before. However, this is not where i would want to be IDEALLY. What do i mean by this? The format will never be perfect with Splinter Twin available. Why? Because UR/x Twin builds have shown to us that they can be the best deck in the format, and be a "safe" bet to compete at higher level like Grand Prix events or SCG Tour, WMCQ,etc. To me this is just bad because it would make Modern like Legacy in the sense that there´s a "safe" choice for any given metagame. However, i prefer the format to be policed by a control deck that wins on T4 and has a high skill ceiling than a T3 or T2 russian roulette deck.
Also, i'm against adding expansions artifically. The further i would go is to just take out 8th and 9th edition and get rid of the vicious hosers like Moon and Bridge that make up for unfun games. Blood Moon without SSG should be mostly fine though.
With all due respect, this sounds like nothing but opinionated nonsense. If the whole point of this is to re-evaluate the banlist by testing and gathering data, then let the results determine whether these "vicious hosers" are actually ban-worthy rather than anecdotal cases of butthurt. Until then, hook a brother up with whatever you're smoking; I'd love to experience your fantasy world where it's rational to ban SSG/Mox Opal, but artifact lands & summer bloom are totally legit.
Ok, you say i'm going for opinionated nonsense and you clearly have bias towards Opal and Bridge/Moon. Seems legit.
Swing and a miss; strike 2. Blood Moon and Ensnaring Bridge have both probably taken two years off my life due to tilt-related stress; all joking aside, I ******* hate playing against them. Yet, neither of them have proven to be absolutely broken, so I can acknowledge the fact that they serve a purpose in the format and if testing shows that they're busted, then great; that's two more years added to my lifespan. I have no qualms with Opal, but again, if it needs to go then so be it.
This criteria just simply still doesn't walk any logical path. We are implementing a turn four rule, and unbanning three different violators of that rule.
We have unbanned Chrome Mox, Seething Song & Dark Depths. We need to remove this turn 4 rule, or reban these cards immediately. It's tremendously difficult for anyone to take this project somewhat seriously with this huge glaring contradiction in methodology.
If you are trying to control the amount of turns played in a given match (which I think is beyond ridiculous if you've been around these forums for more than 30 days, looking at the posts people make), then you better start realizing that all fast mana needs to be heavily evaluated. Which is something that the current Modern banned list has already arbitrarily done by even going as deep as banning Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll.
I think you raise a great point. Holding onto the idea of a turn 4 rule becomes arbitrary when testing/evaluating ban-worthy cards.
I feel arguments for and against cards being on the current list could be better saved for the State of Modern thread or Discord. We should be working out the parameters of the testing here, not whether people feel Mox Opal is unfair and needs to be banned.
That's why I said earlier that a good option is to only unban cards deserving of testing. The biggest offenders like artifact lands can stay banned because we know they are broken.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's why I said earlier that a good option is to only urban cards deserving of testing.
What about rural cards?
Sometimes I dislike the auto correct on my phone. It also likes to change Jeskai and other mtg specific terms into the wierdest auto corrects ever.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Truthfully, I feel the Artifact Lands are closer to the least powerful cards on the current Modern banned list.
I've posted this before and echoed it through multiple bannings announcements, when the Artifact lands were legal in old extended, they tended to favour Thirst for Knowledge decks over the summed up fears everyone has about Krark-Clan Ironworks and Arcbound Ravager. They just don't play out like everyone always fears.
The reason they were initially banned, goes with the mentality that Bitterblossom and Valakut were. The top extended decks just simply all got hit when they created Modern. Remember, the Philadelphia Pro Tour was supposed to be an Extended Pro Tour 3 weeks beforehand, and they wanted none of the same testing to be applicable.
I think people need to realize, that the worst thing a Seat of the Synod is going to do, is make Cranial Plating give +1 Damage, and -1 Creature to equip it.
Finally, I'd caution anyone thinking this will solve any and all problems with the current Modern format. The meta doesn't seem particularly oppressive to any one type of deck or strategy (besides draw-go...), and Wizards has already begun the process of introducing good "police" cards a la Fatal Push. In time, the "official" Modern format may fix its generally small balance problems.
Even if it's just Seat of the Synod unbanned I will be very happy. It's the unban I'm waiting for that will probably never happen. They could even ban Darksteel Citadel in exchange. Replacing the 4 Darksteel Citadel with 4 Seat of the Synod in my deck would improve the mana. Will be easier to cast Master of Etherium, Thoughtcast... and also the Spell Pierce that I have in the sideboard. 4 Opal, 3 Drum, 4 Spire, 1 basic island, 4 Seat = 16 U sources.
Truthfully, I feel the Artifact Lands are closer to the least powerful cards on the current Modern banned list.
I've posted this before and echoed it through multiple bannings announcements, when the Artifact lands were legal in old extended, they tended to favour Thirst for Knowledge decks over the summed up fears everyone has about Krark-Clan Ironworks and Arcbound Ravager. They just don't play out like everyone always fears.
The reason they were initially banned, goes with the mentality that Bitterblossom and Valakut were. The top extended decks just simply all got hit when they created Modern. Remember, the Philadelphia Pro Tour was supposed to be an Extended Pro Tour 3 weeks beforehand, and they wanted none of the same testing to be applicable.
I think people need to realize, that the worst thing a Seat of the Synod is going to do, is make Cranial Plating give +1 Damage, and -1 Creature to equip it.
Well i posted my banlist changes for the "new" Modern and Artifact Lands are an unban i'm willing to make as long as Mox Opal gets the hammer. To me it's a completely fair trade. Artifact Lands give the Affinity deck explosiveness and raw power, but with a cost. Adding lands that deal no damage whatsoever is taxing on the Win ASAP plan. I'm not sure what would they cut. What i'm sure is that Opal could not exist with Artifact Lands and it's a generic mana accelerator that will probably need a ban in the future.
PS: Forgot to say that i don't know why everyone is so afraid of this lands and Mox Opal is just fine. Makes no sense really.
Turn 1 Plating or Turn 1 Frogmite. The first one has the backup of grinding with Manlands and Ravager, the other has a mediocre Plan B and gets slaughtered by wrath effects.
I think that's a path you need to be careful with Pros are often wrong. devs are often wrong, and we plebs are very very often wrong.
That said, us Twin fans predicted Blue would suffer, and a format with Twin, is a better one.
I don't think that a format with Twin in it reflects one which resembles the "diverse" one in which WotC has stated they want. Twin and Pod are likely the two most restrictive decks the format has ever had regarding which decks are viable. Blue is doing better and better with every new set Grixis is now a thing.
The entire reasons that Pro players lamented the banning of Pod and Twin so much was because it would open up deck diversity and deck diversity makes it much harder to be a spike and WotC has essentially put out a goal for the format to be as diverse as possible which seems like a very anti-spikish position for them to have which might reflect on why they have also removed it from the highest spikey level of play as a format.
I want to propose an entirely new banned list, I haven't seen many people on Discord, and I am taking in the results of the current GP's with my perspective.
Once this settles, my next goal would be to heavily attempt to get Splinter Twin and Jace, The Mind Sculptor. I know many Twin players won't like my suggestion, but if we can get all the fair cards in the format first, we can see how everything else plays out. I'm sorta sick of just playing against people who don't wanna playtest the current banned list poposal, and when they do I just smack them down turn 2 with a Dark Depths.
This criteria just simply still doesn't walk any logical path. We are implementing a turn four rule, and unbanning three different violators of that rule.
We have unbanned Chrome Mox, Seething Song & Dark Depths. We need to remove this turn 4 rule, or reban these cards immediately. It's tremendously difficult for anyone to take this project somewhat seriously with this huge glaring contradiction in methodology.
If you are trying to control the amount of turns played in a given match (which I think is beyond ridiculous if you've been around these forums for more than 30 days, looking at the posts people make), then you better start realizing that all fast mana needs to be heavily evaluated. Which is something that the current Modern banned list has already arbitrarily done by even going as deep as banning Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll.
While I agree that Dark Depths is probably too powerful for Modern, I don't think that it is a turn 4 rule violator.
As a Legacy Lands player, I can understand this wish, but I don't think it's a good idea. Lands is ok in Legacy because there are answers to it. Show and Tell, Storm and Painter being the best decks against Lands.
These are exactly the strong, fast Combo-Decks that people want to avoid in Modern.
Also: Having Wasteland helps...
Without fast Combo, I don't think its wise to introduce a Lands-type of deck.
And finally, I don't know how close you come to the 'Lands-experience' in Modern anyway, with so many of the most important cards being pre-8th. My advise is: If you want to play lands, play legacy lands. You're not doing it right without Maze of Ith, Tabernacle, Mox Diamond, Crop Rotation and Exploration anyway
Patrick Dickmann. I didn't play Twin back then. I play Modern since Innistrad. I was about 3 times VERY close of buying into Splinter Twin, since i'm a blue player at heart. I never did it because of many arguements that i won't bore you with.
Back when Twin and Bloom got axed we all felt the same i think. Modern's a ban format because of the PT. We bit the bullet and moved on, despite many of us not particulary happy with how the banlist was being managed.
2 years later. After many fiascos and disagreements with R&D i can conclude that i'm very much on the Splinter Twin unban train. I know important voices like ktkenshinx have said that unbanning Twin would be a step backwards. That was a year ago. Right know we need Twin as the hero we can have, not the one we want.
I'm not going to explain why i think Twin should be unbanned, that's why i linked the article written by a pro and not a random guy. Also, the article gives opinion on other unbannings that people think about.
Here's the most recent one: http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/patrick-dickmann/a-modern-banlist-history-lesson-discussion
Worth the time.
[On Misstep]: "There's not that many 1 mana spells that are being played though. the cantrips are mediocre and curves are much higher than in legacy!"
There you have it: proof positive that being a pro doesn't mean you can evaluate the format.
Pretty much what we can expect from pro opinions: a few decent insights and just as many misfires. Fun to post when they agree with us, but nothing special.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Yet he never said he would unban it. Also i want to say that i trust more on the opionion of Patrcik Dickmann and Seth Manfield(who advocated for a Misstep unban earlier) than anyone in this thread or any MTGS thread.
That's why they are pros, they understand the game on another level than ours(the non pros).
That said, us Twin fans predicted Blue would suffer, and a format with Twin, is a better one.
Spirits
Dickmann especially, since he is one of the few pros that actually focuses on Modern as his primary format.
Also, how are we gonna be testing this?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
With all due respect, this sounds like nothing but opinionated nonsense. If the whole point of this is to re-evaluate the banlist by testing and gathering data, then let the results determine whether these "vicious hosers" are actually ban-worthy rather than anecdotal cases of butthurt. Until then, hook a brother up with whatever you're smoking; I'd love to experience your fantasy world where it's rational to ban SSG/Mox Opal, but artifact lands & summer bloom are totally legit.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Most of the testing is happening on XMage, and some people are testing on Cockatrice as well. Ultimately, it's whatever platform you can find that other people are willing to use for testing. I'd recommend checking out the discord if you haven't already, as well as voting on the poll if you haven't. Both of those links can be found in the OP.
Ok, you say i'm going for opinionated nonsense and you clearly have bias towards Opal and Bridge/Moon. Seems legit.
First of all, i NEVER said i would ban Moon/Bridge. I said that i'm AGAINST adding expansions, and if anything, we should take expansions out. Bridge and Moon ARE unfun for most people. Make a poll if you don't believe me. You can continue to believe that being Mooned on T2 is so much fun.
Opal and SSG go in the same category as they push the barrier to far towards Fast mana-play. My initial guess of the banlist was to slow down the format to where WOTC wants and keep the nonsense out of the format.
Bloom and Song go in the same category as the departure of SSG would kill many combos. I don't want combo players to not have a home in Modern so naturally i figured that we could give them one of those. Song might be safer without Probe. The 'OR' clause has that magic, you can choose one or the other, it's very pretty much up for debate if you will.
Lastly, Aftifact lands would enable fast starts form Affinity and some random control decks. I think i prefer Lands than Opal since Opal is constatly being used to break the T4 rule, or being played in the ´SB hate Roulette' Affinity that it's explosiveness makes up for lopsided matchups if you don't have enough Stony Silence, Ancient Grudge and/or boatloads of removal.
We have unbanned Chrome Mox, Seething Song & Dark Depths. We need to remove this turn 4 rule, or reban these cards immediately. It's tremendously difficult for anyone to take this project somewhat seriously with this huge glaring contradiction in methodology.
If you are trying to control the amount of turns played in a given match (which I think is beyond ridiculous if you've been around these forums for more than 30 days, looking at the posts people make), then you better start realizing that all fast mana needs to be heavily evaluated. Which is something that the current Modern banned list has already arbitrarily done by even going as deep as banning Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll.
Swing and a miss; strike 2. Blood Moon and Ensnaring Bridge have both probably taken two years off my life due to tilt-related stress; all joking aside, I ******* hate playing against them. Yet, neither of them have proven to be absolutely broken, so I can acknowledge the fact that they serve a purpose in the format and if testing shows that they're busted, then great; that's two more years added to my lifespan. I have no qualms with Opal, but again, if it needs to go then so be it.
I think you raise a great point. Holding onto the idea of a turn 4 rule becomes arbitrary when testing/evaluating ban-worthy cards.
Absolutely.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What about rural cards?
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Sometimes I dislike the auto correct on my phone. It also likes to change Jeskai and other mtg specific terms into the wierdest auto corrects ever.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I've posted this before and echoed it through multiple bannings announcements, when the Artifact lands were legal in old extended, they tended to favour Thirst for Knowledge decks over the summed up fears everyone has about Krark-Clan Ironworks and Arcbound Ravager. They just don't play out like everyone always fears.
The top Extended decks in the last PTQ Season were Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle/Scapeshift, Thopter-Depths, Artifact Control/Thopter, Dredge, Fae, and the least well placing, was Affinity. This metagame had no Abrupt Decay, no Stony Silence, no Rest in Peace, no Kolaghan's Command.
The reason they were initially banned, goes with the mentality that Bitterblossom and Valakut were. The top extended decks just simply all got hit when they created Modern. Remember, the Philadelphia Pro Tour was supposed to be an Extended Pro Tour 3 weeks beforehand, and they wanted none of the same testing to be applicable.
I think people need to realize, that the worst thing a Seat of the Synod is going to do, is make Cranial Plating give +1 Damage, and -1 Creature to equip it.
Even if it's just Seat of the Synod unbanned I will be very happy. It's the unban I'm waiting for that will probably never happen. They could even ban Darksteel Citadel in exchange. Replacing the 4 Darksteel Citadel with 4 Seat of the Synod in my deck would improve the mana. Will be easier to cast Master of Etherium, Thoughtcast... and also the Spell Pierce that I have in the sideboard. 4 Opal, 3 Drum, 4 Spire, 1 basic island, 4 Seat = 16 U sources.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Well i posted my banlist changes for the "new" Modern and Artifact Lands are an unban i'm willing to make as long as Mox Opal gets the hammer. To me it's a completely fair trade. Artifact Lands give the Affinity deck explosiveness and raw power, but with a cost. Adding lands that deal no damage whatsoever is taxing on the Win ASAP plan. I'm not sure what would they cut. What i'm sure is that Opal could not exist with Artifact Lands and it's a generic mana accelerator that will probably need a ban in the future.
PS: Forgot to say that i don't know why everyone is so afraid of this lands and Mox Opal is just fine. Makes no sense really.
Turn 1 Plating or Turn 1 Frogmite. The first one has the backup of grinding with Manlands and Ravager, the other has a mediocre Plan B and gets slaughtered by wrath effects.
I don't think that a format with Twin in it reflects one which resembles the "diverse" one in which WotC has stated they want. Twin and Pod are likely the two most restrictive decks the format has ever had regarding which decks are viable. Blue is doing better and better with every new set Grixis is now a thing.
The entire reasons that Pro players lamented the banning of Pod and Twin so much was because it would open up deck diversity and deck diversity makes it much harder to be a spike and WotC has essentially put out a goal for the format to be as diverse as possible which seems like a very anti-spikish position for them to have which might reflect on why they have also removed it from the highest spikey level of play as a format.
Spirits
Remove from the current Modern banned list;
Ponder
Preordain
Gitaxian Probe
Golgari Grave-Troll
Stoneforge Mystic
Bloodbraid Elf
Seat of the Synod
Ancient Den
Great Furnace
Tree of Tales
Vault of Whispers
Once this settles, my next goal would be to heavily attempt to get Splinter Twin and Jace, The Mind Sculptor. I know many Twin players won't like my suggestion, but if we can get all the fair cards in the format first, we can see how everything else plays out. I'm sorta sick of just playing against people who don't wanna playtest the current banned list poposal, and when they do I just smack them down turn 2 with a Dark Depths.
While I agree that Dark Depths is probably too powerful for Modern, I don't think that it is a turn 4 rule violator.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
As a Legacy Lands player, I can understand this wish, but I don't think it's a good idea. Lands is ok in Legacy because there are answers to it. Show and Tell, Storm and Painter being the best decks against Lands.
These are exactly the strong, fast Combo-Decks that people want to avoid in Modern.
Also: Having Wasteland helps...
Without fast Combo, I don't think its wise to introduce a Lands-type of deck.
And finally, I don't know how close you come to the 'Lands-experience' in Modern anyway, with so many of the most important cards being pre-8th. My advise is: If you want to play lands, play legacy lands. You're not doing it right without Maze of Ith, Tabernacle, Mox Diamond, Crop Rotation and Exploration anyway
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island