I was in one of my locla stores today and a few people who don't really know much of the format said they think he would and the guy working there who doesn't know magic at all pretty much agreed. Not really expecting what they say to be valid but it was funny. I think banning Jace again would hurt confidence almost as much (if not more) than all these standard bans
Twin was not hurting Blue diversity though. Yes thats what Wizards thought at the time, but they were wrong. Blue sucked, so diversity was low to non-existent, because if you played blue, you played Twin, or you simply did not play blue.
Game play patterns is just a side effect of the way the deck played, but 'awful' is the same as many many many other decks, the only issue is that Twin was successful at it.
In addition, anything jank, simply lost to Twin, because it was just disruptive enough, and just fast enough, and just consistent enough, to never be out of the game.
I'm with ktk, there is no world in which I envision Twin coming off, because the much vaunted 'diversity' of decks would be gone overnight and NOW it would cause 'blue diversity issues' on top of wiping out anything that wasnt up to the task of beating twin while keeping up 2 mana, after turn 3.
im with ktkenshinx on this. there is no feasible situation that could arise where an appropriate response would be to unban twin. even if there were zero blue decks represented in tier 1-3, looking to twin as a solution would be absurd. great...youve helped exactly 1 deck. a deck that people historically claim isn't that interesting to play against.
i get that jtms/bbe unbanning has been a fascinating development for the format. they are hallmark cards from past. it is a testament to the breadth of the format that wotc felt it was an appropriate time to release them. they are both 4 cmc cards that don't win on the spot, and thus it is pretty hard to envision a scenario where they break anything.
what confuses me is this expectation of continuous unbans in the event jtms/bbe naturally slot into the format. its like the typical ban mania has been flipped and now it is unban mania.
why?
is wotc supposed to go down the ban list and systematically address each card that either: wasn't in the format since the beginning, or banned for proving problematic in the past? what is the upside?
imagine the possible scenarios:
-the card sees no play cause other/better things are going on
-the card becomes a format staple and played in various decks
-the card breaks something
mind you that all of these cards are functionally out of print. meaning that in 2 out of 3 of these situations there is an unnatural strain placed on the secondary market, with the worst case having the card rebanned. so you are continuously asking modern players to engage in an inflated market, with some nonzero chance that the card becomes worthless in the event of a reban.
so i ask again. why? is unbanning cards like stoneforge mystic really going to fix some glaring problem with the format? or do you just want to play with the powerful card?
SFM seems alright, and id definitely play it in multiple decks. i just don't see the point. whats wrong with just letting the format organically develop with the adoption of powerful cards from standard sets? you know...like it is supposed to?
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Well, as someone who had Jace, and went out to pick up BBE to give them a spin..yeah it's just to play with powerful cards. Thats one of the many appeals in Modern. :]
Look at all the development, brewing, testing, that has come out of these cards, just 2 cards, but unlike the last 2 cards to come off as a set (AV/Sword) these did something.
If (and who knows at this point) Jace and BBE do nothing but power up some Tier 1.5/2 decks, or create some new ones to fill those levels of power (Ponza, BUG, RUG) then that would be a huge success to me.
besides the risks and long reaching ramifications on the modern card economy?
jace and bbe had adequate explanations for coming off the ban list. i just dont see their successful incorporation into the format as a justification to try stuff out just for the sake of trying stuff out.
if unbans arent looking to address a specific problem, then it turns into a process of doing so just to 'shake things up'.
this is reminiscent of one of the largest concerns people brought up during the series of bannings prior to modern being dropped as a pro-tour format. it was difficult to not look at them as veiled attempts by wotc to artificially induce shifts in the format.
how would this be functionally any different? unbannings can kill decks just as easily as creating them.
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This doesn't make any sense. There is absolutely no reason to believe Twin would have dominated after a Summer Bloom ban, because:
1) Before Amulet Bloom caught on, Twin didn't dominate (even if someone wants to adapt an extremely loose definition of "dominate" for Twin, it didn't "dominate" particularly worse after Amulet Bloom caught on).
2) Twin had (according to my understanding) a positive matchup against Amulet Bloom.
So it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to claim that Amulet Bloom was somehow keeping Twin in check when, if anything, Amulet Bloom being around was a good thing for Twin.
As for the general claim of Twin pushing out decks and that "Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'" there is no real proof of this claim. The decks that were bad when Twin was around were still bad when Twin was banned. Yes, there were a few decks that became noticeably better after the Twin banning... but those were decks that, not coincidentally, were made better by an unban or a new card being printed.
It makes plenty of sense. Bloom Titan destroyed most decks that beat Twin or had a solid matchup vs. Twin (I'm not going to lie and say that many decks beat Twin). First of all, BGx beat Twin. If you are one of those people that is going to say that BGx vs. Twin was 50/50, then we can just end the conversation here and agree to disagree. BGx was a terrifying matchup for Twin; for many reasons - namely they could win on 3 mana where cards like Keranos cost 5 mana and were often too late game to matter. With Bloom gone, Twin could literally focus on the poor matchups that it had. I guess possibly Bloom leaving could have also made other decks focus on Twin more too. In the end, I just feel like it encouraged too much interaction if that's a thing, basically boiling down to interact or die. Tap out and die. Sorry, for me and my Combo decks, tapping out against Twin was a death sentence. Maybe I would have a different stance if I ran BGx for years, but I didn't and don't.
Twin did beat Bloom Titan. We need Twin to keep Titan in check or else there's literally very few decks that have a positive matchup vs. Bloom and some decks like BGx, Burn, and Tron get absolutely demolished by Bloom. Not to mention, near the end even Tron was competitive with Twin - mainboard Spellskites and plenty of SB options. This was a huge change from when Tron used to have literally NO chance vs. Twin for many years with both of them in the format early on.
P.S. - Twin pushed out Gitaxian Probe Infect, which Wizards deemed strong enough later on to warrant a ban, despite the printing of Fatal Push. It also caused a LOT of friction for Affinity players, Twin being one of their worst matchups.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
besides the risks and long reaching ramifications on the modern card economy?
jace and bbe had adequate explanations for coming off the ban list. i just dont see their successful incorporation into the format as a justification to try stuff out just for the sake of trying stuff out.
if unbans arent looking to address a specific problem, then it turns into a process of doing so just to 'shake things up'.
this is reminiscent of one of the largest concerns people brought up during the series of bannings prior to modern being dropped as a pro-tour format. it was difficult to not look at them as veiled attempts by wotc to artificially induce shifts in the format.
how would this be functionally any different? unbannings can kill decks just as easily as creating them.
I can answer this from my perspective. If a card doesn't break something in Modern, it should be unbanned. Modern gets stale otherwise. You can't tell me that players were not bored of the Holy Trinity of Twin/Affinity/Jund had for years. It's not so much to shake things up, as to keep the format somewhat fresh. There's only so long players will enjoy getting turn 2ed by a Glistener Elf, Splinter Twinned out because they tapped for a 3 mana creature, Summer Bloomed on turn 3, or Eye of Ugin...don't get me started there.
If a card is worse than what is currently going on in Modern, then it SHOULD get unbanned. Yes, Stoneforge Mystic, Preordain, Green Sun's Zenith, and potentially some others all fit this criteria. Do you honestly want a newer player to go onto the format of Modern and notice that Death's Shadow is not banned, but Stoneforge Mystic is? It doesn't make sense to some people, sorry. Some people like me compare it to seeing Shock on a ban list, but Lightning Bolt is not. That one is obviously more obvious, but do you get what I'm saying?
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
twin had no outright bad matchups. any dedicated twin player knows this. this is why pros gravitated toward the deck and consistently piloted it, making it the deck with the highest winrate in modern history.
it wasnt that twin was especially powerful. it was that you could bring it to an open field, and even with dedicated hate, matchups were in the realm of 50/50. with plenty of them just outright in your favor.
you could pack all the thoughtseizes, abrupt decays, linvalas, spellskites, combusts, or whatever else. still twin would beat you about half the time.
this was also true of pod (and jund). people called them the 'pillars of the format', because everything revolved around them. there was no conceivable metagame where those decks were bad.
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what about the format naturally changing over time from inclusions from standard sets?
i get that there are cases to be made for cards seeming 'alright' in terms of power level. i just dont see the point of throwing obviously good cards that are no longer in print into the mix just for the sake of it.
for instance jace's unban coincided with an inclusion in a soon to be released specialized product. some people see this as a money grab, others see it as fortuitous timing. why not try out jace in the format if you happen to be doing another print run?
should every unbanning coincide with a specialized reprint?
stoneforge gets unbanned without a reprint. prices skyrocket both on SFM and key pieces of equipment (swords). players are asked to drop potentially hundreds of dollars to keep their decks competitive.
so not only do you need to buy into power cards from standard sets, every six months or so some random card gets released from the banlist 'just because'. players are then at the mercy of secondary market fluctuations - 'just to keep things fresh'
not to mention it only takes one mistake. one misjudgment. if a card breaks something it does massive damage to the health of the format.
so not only do you raise the cost of entry, you also raise the sustained cost of playing. all to shake up a format that people consider diverse and healthy.
i just cant see that as a reasonable course of action.
edit: see the backlash from players on jtms prices. now imagine this happening over and over again. if the best we can hope for after some unbanning is getting back to a format like we currently have. can you not see how this would push people away from the format?
I still think WotC won't unban Stoneforge, for a similar reason, if more theoretical, as to why Pod was banned. In theory, Stoneforge can get stronger if better equipment are printed, especially ones that meet certain weird requirements, such as non-mana or 0 mana cost equips or powerful ETB abilities meant to be balanced by high CMCs. WotC likely wants the freedom to create such equipment potentially in the future, and doesn't like having to go back on unbans, so I don't think they'll unban it, even if it would be safe in the current environment.
Just imagine what it might be like if they printed something like:
Hero's Hyper-GigaSword9 Artifact - Equipment
Indestructible, Hexproof.
Permanents you control can't be sacrificed due to spells or abilities your opponents control.
Equipped creature gets +4/+4, indestructible, hexproof, trample, haste, and vigilance.
Equip 0
yeah when assessing card power, a good indicator is how well the card scales with what is going on around it. snapcaster gets more powerful when there are cheap/powerful spells. collected company gets better if there are stronger 3cmc or less creatures.
stoneforge is a pretty prime example of this.
it was one of my concerns with BBE. the type of spells you can cascade into really influence BBEs power level. i have a hard time imagining something better than k-command or either of the 3cmc lilianas, but time will tell.
i cant quite remember if wotc ever made an official statement about these sort of design limitations. however i vaguely remember reading that they basically don't take any of that into consideration when designing new sets, and if something breaks in an eternal format theyll just ban it. as it isnt worth it to constantly assess how card will impact all formats, but rather just focus on making good standard sets.
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I disagree about blue diversity. After the Twin ban, it took a little bit but blue popped out of the woodworks. Say what you want about changes since, but Ancestral Vision wasn't even seeing play consistently (and still isn't). GDS doesn't hinge on any new cards like Fatal Push, it would have been fine just jamming Bolts or other removal like Dreadbore/Terminate. We have much better diversity now with blue than we've basically ever had (now being pre-Jace). Even pre-Search for Azcanta the diversity was better.
Comparing Stoneforge to Pod is a non-starter. Design & Development have stated clearly, with years of precedent backing it up, that the Swords are way more powerful than any equipment the will ever print again, and Skull was a huge mistake. These Stoneforge-breaking equipment are never coming.
The idea that they can’t unban SFM because they may at some point mess up and pull another Batterskull sounds suspect to me as well. That would potentially break a number of decks, even if it would be better for SFM decks. Banning the new offender would be the better solution. (They didn’t ban Delver or Snapcaster; they banned Cruise, and that was the right call.)
Pod got banned because they know they will print new creatures that will break the format if they leave it. They also have alternatives to it that make the current iteration of Pod playable. Sure, it's changed a bit based on new creatures/tech, thew new alternatives, and just general format evolutions.
I definitely think they're going to print powerful Swords again. All 5 Swords aren't that powerful, they're just only good IF we have Stoneforge. Back in Standard, Sword of War and Peace was okay but not even that good. But Skullclamp, Batterskull, and Jitte are probably too powerful. I think Stoneforge isn't safe to unban in Modern because it really clamps on equipment development. Batterskull and Cranial Plating are already super powerful and because we don't develop that many equipments, it's easy to break them accidentally.
Snapcaster is always a powerful card, just never too powerful. Cruise and Snap are non-combos so it's fine to ban Cruise instead. Besides, everyone knew Snap wasn't the problem there. I would guess they won't ban Snapcaster in the future, mostly because they're very careful with the spells they print. Like since Snapcaster got printed, we've gotten K-Command, Fatal Push, and a couple that got banned (including restricted in Vintage). They're very cautious.
In news unrelated to unbannings, I remember there was at least one user and at least one article that claimed neither Bridge, Chalice, nor Moon were likely M25 reprints because "Wizards doesn't want to encourage that kind of gameplay." Lo and behold, now we have Bridge, Chalice, AND Moon all reprinted. This doesn't necessarily mean anything for the long-term prospects of those cards in Modern (see Twin reprinted despite being later banned, or SFM promo with no unbaning). It does, however, undercut this style of persistent tinfoil hat, conspiracy theorizing that Wizards has some hidden "deep state" agenda behind the scenes which influences both their format management and card printing policies/actions. We see accusations like this all the time (e.g. "Blood Sun printing = pending Blood Moon banning??") and they are almost always never true. The same goes for the absurd notion that Wizards is deliberately keeping certain deck/card prices high to sabotage formats or certain decks they allegedly dislike. This is further evidence in a mountain of proof that Wizards doesn't engage in this sort of behavior. Hopefully we view this as a wakeup call to stop making these kinds of allegations.
I disagree about blue diversity. After the Twin ban, it took a little bit but blue popped out of the woodworks. Say what you want about changes since, but Ancestral Vision wasn't even seeing play consistently (and still isn't). GDS doesn't hinge on any new cards like Fatal Push, it would have been fine just jamming Bolts or other removal like Dreadbore/Terminate. We have much better diversity now with blue than we've basically ever had (now being pre-Jace). Even pre-Search for Azcanta the diversity was better.
....
What was this vaunted blue renaissance? Because it didnt happen until the meta and cards (Search for Azcanta, Spell Queller, etc) happened to enable it.
Twin was not suppressing Blue decks, they saw no reasonable success until powered up.
Well, as someone who had Jace, and went out to pick up BBE to give them a spin..yeah it's just to play with powerful cards. Thats one of the many appeals in Modern. :]
Look at all the development, brewing, testing, that has come out of these cards, just 2 cards, but unlike the last 2 cards to come off as a set (AV/Sword) these did something.
If (and who knows at this point) Jace and BBE do nothing but power up some Tier 1.5/2 decks, or create some new ones to fill those levels of power (Ponza, BUG, RUG) then that would be a huge success to me.
If SFM can do the same? Why not! :]
Why not? Well because there's only so much usage to go around. Every deck that rises in usage comes at the cost of another deck or decks. Then the argument becomes, for instance, why is it more important for BUG to be good than WGR.
Oh, and there's constant brewing and testing in modern. All the unbans do, like bans, is create a different form of rotation. Modern as a format doesn't win, the only people who win this decision are the people who already owned BBE or Jace or bought them out and spiked the price. WOTC wins too, I guess, because I am entirely in the boat of that unban being used to sell M25.
Well, as someone who had Jace, and went out to pick up BBE to give them a spin..yeah it's just to play with powerful cards. Thats one of the many appeals in Modern. :]
Look at all the development, brewing, testing, that has come out of these cards, just 2 cards, but unlike the last 2 cards to come off as a set (AV/Sword) these did something.
If (and who knows at this point) Jace and BBE do nothing but power up some Tier 1.5/2 decks, or create some new ones to fill those levels of power (Ponza, BUG, RUG) then that would be a huge success to me.
If SFM can do the same? Why not! :]
Why not? Well because there's only so much usage to go around. Every deck that rises in usage comes at the cost of another deck or decks. Then the argument becomes, for instance, why is it more important for BUG to be good than WGR.
Oh, and there's constant brewing and testing in modern. All the unbans do, like bans, is create a different form of rotation. Modern as a format doesn't win, the only people who win this decision are the people who already owned BBE or Jace or bought them out and spiked the price. WOTC wins too, I guess, because I am entirely in the boat of that unban being used to sell M25.
Yeah...another worse deck. Or it powers up a weaker deck (say, Knightfall) and introduces another wrinkle to the format.
If the format wins or not when one deck rises and another falls, is completely personal opinion.
I disagree about blue diversity. After the Twin ban, it took a little bit but blue popped out of the woodworks. Say what you want about changes since, but Ancestral Vision wasn't even seeing play consistently (and still isn't). GDS doesn't hinge on any new cards like Fatal Push, it would have been fine just jamming Bolts or other removal like Dreadbore/Terminate. We have much better diversity now with blue than we've basically ever had (now being pre-Jace). Even pre-Search for Azcanta the diversity was better.
We remember different eras...
Blue decks faded into oblivion after the twin ban. Tempo variants began to make a comback with the printing of spell queller, but even then they did not become an expected part of day two meta games until after search was printed.
Indeed, other than a few (sub 3) pro's/grinders able to make decks like Grixis work (that was a thing already with Twin around btw) there was no blue revival.
Its revisionist history.
EDIT: I just have to say, I want to thank personally, whoever designed Search for Azcanta
Is it just me, or does "Jace" seem to be normalizing on MTGO?
I looked at today's posting and it actually looks like there are less Jace decks today than a week ago (in the 5-0 bracket).
Also interesting to note non-jace blue decks still exist.
oh man the period after the twin ban...dark times. clinging desperately to our snapcasters, waiting for tournament results with bated breath, hoping for a sign that all was not lost.
oddly enough i think there is a case to be made that blue falling to the background lead to the resurgence and renovation of many decks and archetypes, ultimately leading to the diverse format we were seeing pre-unban. not that blue was holding these decks back, but rather that people were willing to try other things when the ole 'snapcaster + stuff' piles werent cutting it.
wistful remembrances aside i think people are coming to their senses.
wait there are decks that aren't playing jace or bbe?
welcome to the thunderdome mfers.
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This doesn't make any sense. There is absolutely no reason to believe Twin would have dominated after a Summer Bloom ban, because:
1) Before Amulet Bloom caught on, Twin didn't dominate (even if someone wants to adapt an extremely loose definition of "dominate" for Twin, it didn't "dominate" particularly worse after Amulet Bloom caught on).
2) Twin had (according to my understanding) a positive matchup against Amulet Bloom.
So it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to claim that Amulet Bloom was somehow keeping Twin in check when, if anything, Amulet Bloom being around was a good thing for Twin.
As for the general claim of Twin pushing out decks and that "Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'" there is no real proof of this claim. The decks that were bad when Twin was around were still bad when Twin was banned. Yes, there were a few decks that became noticeably better after the Twin banning... but those were decks that, not coincidentally, were made better by an unban or a new card being printed.
It makes plenty of sense. Bloom Titan destroyed most decks that beat Twin or had a solid matchup vs. Twin (I'm not going to lie and say that many decks beat Twin). First of all, BGx beat Twin. If you are one of those people that is going to say that BGx vs. Twin was 50/50, then we can just end the conversation here and agree to disagree. BGx was a terrifying matchup for Twin; for many reasons - namely they could win on 3 mana where cards like Keranos cost 5 mana and were often too late game to matter. With Bloom gone, Twin could literally focus on the poor matchups that it had. I guess possibly Bloom leaving could have also made other decks focus on Twin more too. In the end, I just feel like it encouraged too much interaction if that's a thing, basically boiling down to interact or die. Tap out and die. Sorry, for me and my Combo decks, tapping out against Twin was a death sentence. Maybe I would have a different stance if I ran BGx for years, but I didn't and don't.
Twin did beat Bloom Titan. We need Twin to keep Titan in check or else there's literally very few decks that have a positive matchup vs. Bloom and some decks like BGx, Burn, and Tron get absolutely demolished by Bloom. Not to mention, near the end even Tron was competitive with Twin - mainboard Spellskites and plenty of SB options. This was a huge change from when Tron used to have literally NO chance vs. Twin for many years with both of them in the format early on.
I noticed you responded only to my second point, and not my first one. If Twin would have run so rampant and been so dominant if not for Amulet Bloom, then why wasn't it doing so before that deck was a real force in the metagame? I looked at it, Twin was always fairly popular (Treasure Cruise era notwithstanding), but I could not see any appreciable decrease during Amulet Bloom's popularity compared to what it had beforehand. So the argument that Twin would dominate if Amulet Bloom was banned does not hold water because Twin didn't do that when Amulet Bloom wasn't around in force.
P.S. - Twin pushed out Gitaxian Probe Infect, which Wizards deemed strong enough later on to warrant a ban, despite the printing of Fatal Push. It also caused a LOT of friction for Affinity players, Twin being one of their worst matchups.
I'm not sure what the point here is? Or rather, I think I see what the point is, but what I think the point is is so nonsensical I have to believe you're trying to say something else. What it looks like you're saying is that "Twin kept Infect out, and Infect was too good, so that means Twin was too good!" There are two major problems with this argument. First, having a positive matchup against an overpowered deck doesn't mean you yourself are overpowered. There were decks that were great against BBE+DRS Jund, Treasure Cruise Delver, or Rhino Pod. That doesn't mean those decks were too powerful. Magic decks are not a simple hierarchy of power, where having a positive matchup against one deck makes you better than that deck. Soul Sisters is amazing against Burn, but that doesn't mean it's a better deck than Burn.
Second, Infect was not regarded as worth banning until Blossoming Defense was printed to put it over the top, about 9 months after Splinter Twin was banned! So even if this "Twin kept this banned deck out which makes it too good" made sense, the Infect it was keeping out wasn't the deck that got banned, because it lacked a key card that made it so good it got banned!
I actually really liked that article.
I was in one of my locla stores today and a few people who don't really know much of the format said they think he would and the guy working there who doesn't know magic at all pretty much agreed. Not really expecting what they say to be valid but it was funny. I think banning Jace again would hurt confidence almost as much (if not more) than all these standard bans
Game play patterns is just a side effect of the way the deck played, but 'awful' is the same as many many many other decks, the only issue is that Twin was successful at it.
In addition, anything jank, simply lost to Twin, because it was just disruptive enough, and just fast enough, and just consistent enough, to never be out of the game.
I'm with ktk, there is no world in which I envision Twin coming off, because the much vaunted 'diversity' of decks would be gone overnight and NOW it would cause 'blue diversity issues' on top of wiping out anything that wasnt up to the task of beating twin while keeping up 2 mana, after turn 3.
Spirits
i get that jtms/bbe unbanning has been a fascinating development for the format. they are hallmark cards from past. it is a testament to the breadth of the format that wotc felt it was an appropriate time to release them. they are both 4 cmc cards that don't win on the spot, and thus it is pretty hard to envision a scenario where they break anything.
what confuses me is this expectation of continuous unbans in the event jtms/bbe naturally slot into the format. its like the typical ban mania has been flipped and now it is unban mania.
why?
is wotc supposed to go down the ban list and systematically address each card that either: wasn't in the format since the beginning, or banned for proving problematic in the past? what is the upside?
imagine the possible scenarios:
-the card sees no play cause other/better things are going on
-the card becomes a format staple and played in various decks
-the card breaks something
mind you that all of these cards are functionally out of print. meaning that in 2 out of 3 of these situations there is an unnatural strain placed on the secondary market, with the worst case having the card rebanned. so you are continuously asking modern players to engage in an inflated market, with some nonzero chance that the card becomes worthless in the event of a reban.
so i ask again. why? is unbanning cards like stoneforge mystic really going to fix some glaring problem with the format? or do you just want to play with the powerful card?
SFM seems alright, and id definitely play it in multiple decks. i just don't see the point. whats wrong with just letting the format organically develop with the adoption of powerful cards from standard sets? you know...like it is supposed to?
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Look at all the development, brewing, testing, that has come out of these cards, just 2 cards, but unlike the last 2 cards to come off as a set (AV/Sword) these did something.
If (and who knows at this point) Jace and BBE do nothing but power up some Tier 1.5/2 decks, or create some new ones to fill those levels of power (Ponza, BUG, RUG) then that would be a huge success to me.
If SFM can do the same? Why not! :]
Spirits
jace and bbe had adequate explanations for coming off the ban list. i just dont see their successful incorporation into the format as a justification to try stuff out just for the sake of trying stuff out.
if unbans arent looking to address a specific problem, then it turns into a process of doing so just to 'shake things up'.
this is reminiscent of one of the largest concerns people brought up during the series of bannings prior to modern being dropped as a pro-tour format. it was difficult to not look at them as veiled attempts by wotc to artificially induce shifts in the format.
how would this be functionally any different? unbannings can kill decks just as easily as creating them.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)It makes plenty of sense. Bloom Titan destroyed most decks that beat Twin or had a solid matchup vs. Twin (I'm not going to lie and say that many decks beat Twin). First of all, BGx beat Twin. If you are one of those people that is going to say that BGx vs. Twin was 50/50, then we can just end the conversation here and agree to disagree. BGx was a terrifying matchup for Twin; for many reasons - namely they could win on 3 mana where cards like Keranos cost 5 mana and were often too late game to matter. With Bloom gone, Twin could literally focus on the poor matchups that it had. I guess possibly Bloom leaving could have also made other decks focus on Twin more too. In the end, I just feel like it encouraged too much interaction if that's a thing, basically boiling down to interact or die. Tap out and die. Sorry, for me and my Combo decks, tapping out against Twin was a death sentence. Maybe I would have a different stance if I ran BGx for years, but I didn't and don't.
Twin did beat Bloom Titan. We need Twin to keep Titan in check or else there's literally very few decks that have a positive matchup vs. Bloom and some decks like BGx, Burn, and Tron get absolutely demolished by Bloom. Not to mention, near the end even Tron was competitive with Twin - mainboard Spellskites and plenty of SB options. This was a huge change from when Tron used to have literally NO chance vs. Twin for many years with both of them in the format early on.
P.S. - Twin pushed out Gitaxian Probe Infect, which Wizards deemed strong enough later on to warrant a ban, despite the printing of Fatal Push. It also caused a LOT of friction for Affinity players, Twin being one of their worst matchups.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I can answer this from my perspective. If a card doesn't break something in Modern, it should be unbanned. Modern gets stale otherwise. You can't tell me that players were not bored of the Holy Trinity of Twin/Affinity/Jund had for years. It's not so much to shake things up, as to keep the format somewhat fresh. There's only so long players will enjoy getting turn 2ed by a Glistener Elf, Splinter Twinned out because they tapped for a 3 mana creature, Summer Bloomed on turn 3, or Eye of Ugin...don't get me started there.
If a card is worse than what is currently going on in Modern, then it SHOULD get unbanned. Yes, Stoneforge Mystic, Preordain, Green Sun's Zenith, and potentially some others all fit this criteria. Do you honestly want a newer player to go onto the format of Modern and notice that Death's Shadow is not banned, but Stoneforge Mystic is? It doesn't make sense to some people, sorry. Some people like me compare it to seeing Shock on a ban list, but Lightning Bolt is not. That one is obviously more obvious, but do you get what I'm saying?
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)it wasnt that twin was especially powerful. it was that you could bring it to an open field, and even with dedicated hate, matchups were in the realm of 50/50. with plenty of them just outright in your favor.
you could pack all the thoughtseizes, abrupt decays, linvalas, spellskites, combusts, or whatever else. still twin would beat you about half the time.
this was also true of pod (and jund). people called them the 'pillars of the format', because everything revolved around them. there was no conceivable metagame where those decks were bad.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)i get that there are cases to be made for cards seeming 'alright' in terms of power level. i just dont see the point of throwing obviously good cards that are no longer in print into the mix just for the sake of it.
for instance jace's unban coincided with an inclusion in a soon to be released specialized product. some people see this as a money grab, others see it as fortuitous timing. why not try out jace in the format if you happen to be doing another print run?
should every unbanning coincide with a specialized reprint?
stoneforge gets unbanned without a reprint. prices skyrocket both on SFM and key pieces of equipment (swords). players are asked to drop potentially hundreds of dollars to keep their decks competitive.
so not only do you need to buy into power cards from standard sets, every six months or so some random card gets released from the banlist 'just because'. players are then at the mercy of secondary market fluctuations - 'just to keep things fresh'
not to mention it only takes one mistake. one misjudgment. if a card breaks something it does massive damage to the health of the format.
so not only do you raise the cost of entry, you also raise the sustained cost of playing. all to shake up a format that people consider diverse and healthy.
i just cant see that as a reasonable course of action.
edit: see the backlash from players on jtms prices. now imagine this happening over and over again. if the best we can hope for after some unbanning is getting back to a format like we currently have. can you not see how this would push people away from the format?
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Just imagine what it might be like if they printed something like:
Hero's Hyper-GigaSword 9
Artifact - Equipment
Indestructible, Hexproof.
Permanents you control can't be sacrificed due to spells or abilities your opponents control.
Equipped creature gets +4/+4, indestructible, hexproof, trample, haste, and vigilance.
Equip 0
Or
Bloody Bow 8
Artifact - Equipment
Equipped creature gets +2/+2, deathtouch, double strike, lifelink, haste, vigilance, trample and reach.
Equip -- Pay 10 life
stoneforge is a pretty prime example of this.
it was one of my concerns with BBE. the type of spells you can cascade into really influence BBEs power level. i have a hard time imagining something better than k-command or either of the 3cmc lilianas, but time will tell.
i cant quite remember if wotc ever made an official statement about these sort of design limitations. however i vaguely remember reading that they basically don't take any of that into consideration when designing new sets, and if something breaks in an eternal format theyll just ban it. as it isnt worth it to constantly assess how card will impact all formats, but rather just focus on making good standard sets.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
The idea that they can’t unban SFM because they may at some point mess up and pull another Batterskull sounds suspect to me as well. That would potentially break a number of decks, even if it would be better for SFM decks. Banning the new offender would be the better solution. (They didn’t ban Delver or Snapcaster; they banned Cruise, and that was the right call.)
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I definitely think they're going to print powerful Swords again. All 5 Swords aren't that powerful, they're just only good IF we have Stoneforge. Back in Standard, Sword of War and Peace was okay but not even that good. But Skullclamp, Batterskull, and Jitte are probably too powerful. I think Stoneforge isn't safe to unban in Modern because it really clamps on equipment development. Batterskull and Cranial Plating are already super powerful and because we don't develop that many equipments, it's easy to break them accidentally.
Snapcaster is always a powerful card, just never too powerful. Cruise and Snap are non-combos so it's fine to ban Cruise instead. Besides, everyone knew Snap wasn't the problem there. I would guess they won't ban Snapcaster in the future, mostly because they're very careful with the spells they print. Like since Snapcaster got printed, we've gotten K-Command, Fatal Push, and a couple that got banned (including restricted in Vintage). They're very cautious.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
....
What was this vaunted blue renaissance? Because it didnt happen until the meta and cards (Search for Azcanta, Spell Queller, etc) happened to enable it.
Twin was not suppressing Blue decks, they saw no reasonable success until powered up.
Spirits
Why not? Well because there's only so much usage to go around. Every deck that rises in usage comes at the cost of another deck or decks. Then the argument becomes, for instance, why is it more important for BUG to be good than WGR.
Oh, and there's constant brewing and testing in modern. All the unbans do, like bans, is create a different form of rotation. Modern as a format doesn't win, the only people who win this decision are the people who already owned BBE or Jace or bought them out and spiked the price. WOTC wins too, I guess, because I am entirely in the boat of that unban being used to sell M25.
Yeah...another worse deck. Or it powers up a weaker deck (say, Knightfall) and introduces another wrinkle to the format.
If the format wins or not when one deck rises and another falls, is completely personal opinion.
Spirits
We remember different eras...
Blue decks faded into oblivion after the twin ban. Tempo variants began to make a comback with the printing of spell queller, but even then they did not become an expected part of day two meta games until after search was printed.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Its revisionist history.
EDIT: I just have to say, I want to thank personally, whoever designed Search for Azcanta
Spirits
I looked at today's posting and it actually looks like there are less Jace decks today than a week ago (in the 5-0 bracket).
Also interesting to note non-jace blue decks still exist.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Spirits
There are simply times where jace is a 4 mana brainstorm because you are being overrun and looking for an answer is the best you can do.
Spirits
oddly enough i think there is a case to be made that blue falling to the background lead to the resurgence and renovation of many decks and archetypes, ultimately leading to the diverse format we were seeing pre-unban. not that blue was holding these decks back, but rather that people were willing to try other things when the ole 'snapcaster + stuff' piles werent cutting it.
wistful remembrances aside i think people are coming to their senses.
wait there are decks that aren't playing jace or bbe?
welcome to the thunderdome mfers.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I'm not sure what the point here is? Or rather, I think I see what the point is, but what I think the point is is so nonsensical I have to believe you're trying to say something else. What it looks like you're saying is that "Twin kept Infect out, and Infect was too good, so that means Twin was too good!" There are two major problems with this argument. First, having a positive matchup against an overpowered deck doesn't mean you yourself are overpowered. There were decks that were great against BBE+DRS Jund, Treasure Cruise Delver, or Rhino Pod. That doesn't mean those decks were too powerful. Magic decks are not a simple hierarchy of power, where having a positive matchup against one deck makes you better than that deck. Soul Sisters is amazing against Burn, but that doesn't mean it's a better deck than Burn.
Second, Infect was not regarded as worth banning until Blossoming Defense was printed to put it over the top, about 9 months after Splinter Twin was banned! So even if this "Twin kept this banned deck out which makes it too good" made sense, the Infect it was keeping out wasn't the deck that got banned, because it lacked a key card that made it so good it got banned!