My brief chime in on Humans. I think the deck and all it's cards are actually fine. If you want to look at why it's performing so well in Modern, you have to look at how the metagame preys on decks that would normally be able to be tuned to beat a deck like this.
As for KCI IMO it's just the final straw for all the reasons mentioned above. I'd hit stirrings because it hits other offenders in the format like Lantern and Tron. While (speaking of Tron specifically) it ebbs and flows, IMO it's put up some awful numbers in the last year for a deck that is supposed to be wildly inconsistent. Long have those days passed. Hitting Stirrings will make them far more likely to brick. I have a long long history of hating Tron and wanting it banned from the format but I will settle with a nerf to it's consistency. It's a pretty telling sign that almost all Stirring decks end up being degenerate at the end of the day.
She makes some good points for a ban from the deck including similarities to the already banned eggs deck and several other considerations.
Thoughts?
Well I think she may have been reading modern nexus's in depth analysis of how EE helps that deck fight through hate...
Besides that, I agree in decks with logistical issues being worth a ban even if they are neither dominant nor popular. Their product is partly entertainment. I think storm can push the envelope with this, as well, but usually within just a couple minutes you can tell the game is over. I remember tons of games where I was told "do you have grapeshot?" as I was moving forward. KCI checks off several boxes in addition:
1. Takes a significant amount of time (I'd argue at least ten minutes) to win
2. Can fizzle (so you can't even scoop early on)
3. Relies on very specific triggers (so you also have to pay attention to what your opponent is doing to make sure they don't screw up)
4. Isn't a simple loop (it isn't like devoted druid/vizier of remedies where you can explain it once then say you are doing it a thousand times and its accepted)
I wouldn't be surprised if a major event soon became notorious for taking an extra hour or two due to a KCI player with a good record.
I also think it is worth noting how so many pros seem to back up the idea that expensive cards should not be banned unless absolutely necessary. I don't agree with it - you should buy cards understanding that risk and accepting it.
Storm has also become extremely deterministic nowadays anyway. Did they cast Gifts with RRR floating? You are dead if you don't have interaction. KCI doesn't have that deterministic point and that is a major issue. I have my own gripes about storm but at least a competent pilot can kill you quickly.
Part of why nobody has done it has just been that we haven't had a huge sample size in available data to show this. As we get more stats I'm sure more will show these numbers too. I know many of the local grinders I play with have expressed these time concerns with KCI already as well but they don't have exact numbers to prove the sentiments (because we don't see MTGO data like WotC does). As we start PPTQ season though there has been the saying among KCI players against UW control that if you get to sub 10 min left in the round, you should try to combo off. Even if you brick, your opponent likely won't kill you before the end of the turns and you'll either get the draw or the win if you say won game 1 and are in game 2 (pretty common for the UW control vs KCI matchups). These guys aren't even slow playing intentionally. They are just going through the combo at a reasonable rate and there are a lot of decisions to be made. The combo just happens to take that length of time.
Likewise, time reasons is why I really dislike the UW Control deck. I'd love some numbers to back it up but it seems like they almost always go to time in round unless they lose. The deck is decent enough but man I dislike the lack of good quick wincons. Part of it is on pilots not knowing when they need to slam that door shut and turn the corner and instead spend more time not losing.
Let's take it easy on the "proved" when she provides two anecdotal cases. That's a reason to investigate further, not blindly accept that it deserves a ban because she has two examples.
That goes for any statement "proven" on scant anecdotes, not just this one.
There is also another way to overcome these issues: change how extra time itself works in tournaments.
In fact, why don't they just eliminate the five extra turns altogether and say "whoever has the most life after time is finished in the round is declared the winner of that game. If its a tie the game is a draw"
Seems simple enough and would keep tournaments running smoothly without any delays
Ah I was hoping this weekend wasnt just Standard...Matt Nass could have shown up and gotten the deck banned for us by winning it again. Looks like we wait till September.
As to the deck itself, its resiliency to hate by abusing the Mana Ability rules, is unprecedented. That it just main boards EE and laughs at even MORE hate cards, is just icing.
EDIT: To avoid the double post, this was last weekends Modern Classic at SCG Indy.
Ah I was hoping this weekend wasnt just Standard...Matt Nass could have shown up and gotten the deck banned for us by winning it again. Looks like we wait till September.
As to the deck itself, its resiliency to hate by abusing the Mana Ability rules, is unprecedented. That it just main boards EE and laughs at even MORE hate cards, is just icing.
It's not just standard. It's Team Trios (one on Standard, one on Modern and one on Legacy). The meta will be different than traditional Modern events though.
There is also another way to overcome these issues: change how extra time itself works in tournaments.
In fact, why don't they just eliminate the five extra turns altogether and say "whoever has the most life after time is finished in the round is declared the winner of that game. If its a tie the game is a draw"
Seems simple enough and would keep tournaments running smoothly without any delays
I like that. I am SO sick of draws when one of us would very clearly have won on turn 6-7 after time. For myself on Burn or the other player on Elves, it shouldn't be a draw when there is a 19 point life difference
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There is also another way to overcome these issues: change how extra time itself works in tournaments.
In fact, why don't they just eliminate the five extra turns altogether and say "whoever has the most life after time is finished in the round is declared the winner of that game. If its a tie the game is a draw"
Seems simple enough and would keep tournaments running smoothly without any delays
While I agree, WOTC won't do that. Seriously, when is the last time they have changed the actual structure of a match or round of play? When they decided to change the PT top 8s to include an extra pre-board game in best of five scenarios. I can't remember anything beyond that.
I think it should be tiered like many other things: at competitive REL, no extra rounds. You should know how to play a 50 minute match or play a different deck. At FNM? Sure you try something new and may need extra time. Took me a couple nights out to figure out how to properly run storm from a dexterity perspective.
I just want to note again for the record, I'm not 'complaining' and I'm not asking for a ban. I'm trying to look ahead, at a possible scenario, and suggesting something which could mitigate risk.
The exact opposite of 'ban mania' and complaining.
I appreciate that you're framing the suggestion of more flexible tribal hate as a future-looking pressure valve, not a desperate current need. I'm not entirely convinced it would be easy to walk that thin line between "playable" and "deck killer", but I'm not convinced it's impossible either. There's definitely a challenge to properly costing a new Curse of Death's Hold.
At two mana it's almost an "I win" card on the play versus some tribal (at least Elves and Goblins, off the top of my head). At three mana it might be too slow. Although, in either case I'm not sure it'd even find sideboard play unless we reach a weird point in time where tribal decks are dominant. Might be safe on that grounds (in Modern at least) on that basis alone.
I don't think you even need to do that. Play a 2 mana creature with the text "all creatures lose all creature types".
A two mana tribal -1/-1 kills on turn two (imagine on the play!):
- Most of the humans. (Human deck useless.)
- Most elves. (Elves deck dead.)
- Snapcaster mage. (GDS slightly affected.)
- Young pyromancer, Delver of Secrets, spirit tokens. (Delver decks dead, Mardu Pyro almost dead.)
- Vizier of remedies. (Turbo Vizier deck entirely dead, CoCo decks hampered.)
- Goblin tokens. (Half of storm win-con.)
- Myr retriever. (I don't think Ironwork combo can win without it.)
And that's just off the top of my head. That card would be busted. In the usual current meta, it's a maindeck card that you side out against Tron, Jeskai, storm, like the usual current main deck removal.
EDIT: on top that in multiple it's even crazier.
Having played historically against Engineered Plague, I can tell you right now even at three mana, a permanent -1/-1 to all creatures of a given type is brutal. That's why Soul-Scar Mage and Goblin Chainwhirler are so brutal in standard. It's a massive blow against go wide aggro and even if someone has creatures that can survive the effect, that is -1 power for every creature on their side of the board. It's basically a win if you can get any kind of board presence to stick with the typical curve to power ratio.
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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!
She makes some good points for a ban from the deck including similarities to the already banned eggs deck and several other considerations.
Thoughts?
It's nice to see that Emma Handy's articles are enjoyable when she's not trying too hard to play heel.
Agree with most points: I can attest in the last Modern PTQ we had a KCI player went to time, the deck does take time when played by the average player and the mana speed of the ability combined with enormous consistence and resiliency does make it extremely tough.
That said, screw (since the other word ain't allowed) any "but the card is expensive" arguments when deciding which cards to ban (in this case Mox Opal). Trying to portray this with astroturf arguments like "customer confidence" when it's clearly "SCG store confidence in WotC not cutting their profit" is utterly lame. Using the price argument against banning a card is a giveaway that the card is indeed OP, and as a player, I don't lose confidence if a card gets banned as long as power level and metagame health are the criteria used. Nobody will suddenly sell his Goyfs, Jaces, Confidants and other overpriced jank cards just because "they could get hit by the banhammer just as Opal did".
Again, other than that, nice article. Extra points for defending Stirrings.
Re: KCI
Handy's article is a refreshingly serious take on Modern as opposed to some of the offensive clickbait we've seen in a few past articles. That said, I don't find her argument very persuasive. These anecdotal logistical examples didn't even impact the tournaments in which they happened. If Handy had given an example in which KCI took 15 minutes to win in T5 of extra turns, delaying Round N of a GP for 15 minutes, that would be a very legitimate argument. But here, we would need to extrapolate these tangential examples to an end-of-round hypothetical that she can't even cite. It's too far removed to use the Sunrise precedent. I'm totally open to the argument and others should be too, but Handy doesn't argue it successfully. Props to her, however, for aiming at very limited bans and not the sweeping Opal or Stirrings suggestion (even if I think Stirrings should go or Preordain should return). Handy also commits one of the cardinal errors of ban arguments, which is mixing your criteria and not sticking to a point. For instance, when I and a few others argued that Bloom should be banned, we focused solely on its T4 rules violations. Handy is all over the place with logistical challenges, deck power, the "unfun" factor, etc. Minus extra points for stating that Shoal is banned for being unfun when it's literally cited as banned for violating the T4 rule. Moral: DON'T MIX BAN CRITERIA IN ARGUMENTS. It reads unprofessionally.
Re: Humans
Many of the anti-Humans arguments focus on tournaments and metagame compliations that don't inform Wizards' ban decisions. As far as we know, the only factors that matter are GP, PT, and MTGO. GP are probably the biggest (they are consistently cited in B&R updates over the years). We also know Wizards looks almost exclusively at T8s, or at least publicly states that in their B&R updates. So how is Humans doing at the GP T8 level? Welp, here are all decks with 2+ appearances across all 7 GP T8s in 2018 so far:
Not exactly a dominant Humans performance at the GP level. (Incidentally, lol @ Stirrings decks). There are 8 full archetypes with more GP T8 finishes in 2018 so far. Adding the PT would bump Humans to 4 appearances, tying it with Jeskai, Abzan, and Burn, but still putting it below KCI and Gx Tron. So yeah, at the GP T8 level, Humans just isn't cutting it. Unless this changes or shifts, the Humans ban arguments just won't hold water.
While I agree, WOTC won't do that. Seriously, when is the last time they have changed the actual structure of a match or round of play? When they decided to change the PT top 8s to include an extra pre-board game in best of five scenarios. I can't remember anything beyond that.
I think the mulligan rule qualifies.
I like the way extra turns works now, but I do agree it needs something extra to prevent tournament logistics.
Maybe an extra timer like 10 minutes or 5 turns, whichever comes first... draw if either expires.
Engineered plague seems like the kind of card that would never even enter Standard. It destroys the kind of playstyle that WotC encourages for their flagship format.
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Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
While I agree, WOTC won't do that. Seriously, when is the last time they have changed the actual structure of a match or round of play? When they decided to change the PT top 8s to include an extra pre-board game in best of five scenarios. I can't remember anything beyond that.
I think the mulligan rule qualifies.
I like the way extra turns works now, but I do agree it needs something extra to prevent tournament logistics.
Maybe an extra timer like 10 minutes or 5 turns, whichever comes first... draw if either expires.
I think they like having a few turns as something of a balance against one person using a disproportionate amount of the clock. You can't always enforce that, so turns are something of a way to balance it out.
I think they like having a few turns as something of a balance against one person using a disproportionate amount of the clock. You can't always enforce that, so turns are something of a way to balance it out.
Except turns just favor people who take longer anyways. Player clocks would be better.
Re: KCI
Handy's article is a refreshingly serious take on Modern as opposed to some of the offensive clickbait we've seen in a few past articles. That said, I don't find her argument very persuasive. These anecdotal logistical examples didn't even impact the tournaments in which they happened. If Handy had given an example in which KCI took 15 minutes to win in T5 of extra turns, delaying Round N of a GP for 15 minutes, that would be a very legitimate argument. But here, we would need to extrapolate these tangential examples to an end-of-round hypothetical that she can't even cite. It's too far removed to use the Sunrise precedent. I'm totally open to the argument and others should be too, but Handy doesn't argue it successfully. Props to her, however, for aiming at very limited bans and not the sweeping Opal or Stirrings suggestion (even if I think Stirrings should go or Preordain should return). Handy also commits one of the cardinal errors of ban arguments, which is mixing your criteria and not sticking to a point. For instance, when I and a few others argued that Bloom should be banned, we focused solely on its T4 rules violations. Handy is all over the place with logistical challenges, deck power, the "unfun" factor, etc. Minus extra points for stating that Shoal is banned for being unfun when it's literally cited as banned for violating the T4 rule. Moral: DON'T MIX BAN CRITERIA IN ARGUMENTS. It reads unprofessionally.
A stirrings ban might be enough to weaken the consistency of the KCI deck and make it a non-factor in the format, without needing to gut KCI itself.
I also still believe Mox Opal is not an unreasonable card to eliminate from the format, in return for the five artifact lands. This kills the KCI combo while still allowing affinity to soldier on with different tools at its disposal. The Hardened Scales affinity deck, which doesn't rely as heavily on Mox Opal anyway, gains Tree of Tales.
Emma Handy presented some pretty darn convincing arguments in favour of banning something out of KCI.
Let's see if this continues to hold water.
On the one hand, I agree that Handy does a good job of not initially muddling the KCI issue too much. For the first chunk of the article, she doesn't say the deck violates the T4 rule, doesn't say it's too dominant, doesn't say it leads to a sideboard battle, etc. She focuses solely on logistical elements of the deck. Logistics are a good reason to ban a card, specifically if a card/deck is pushing rounds past extra turns in a big way.
The problem is, she only presents one example of how KCI does this. Her example is also a bit confused. In her example, an opponent starts comboing with KCI with "a couple of minutes left on the clock." How many? We don't really know. It seems like it's about 3 given later quotes, but I'm not sure. Then the player continues to combo through those couple of minutes. For everyone else, the round is called and/or extra turns have started, but this player keeps comboing off for an additional 11 minutes beyond those initial "couple of minutes." Then there's a sleeve issue, which shouldn't be considered as a ban element and Handy muddles her argument and already confused timeline by including it. We don't know how long that issue took either. If we remove that, we see a player who ends his last turn of the game at least 10-11 minutes after the round was supposed to end. Handy then wins on her following turn after the player fizzled and his turn ran long.
This example could be a good one but a) Handy presents it poorly so it's really hard to tell how many minutes were added by KCI and how many were added by sleeves and other issues, b) it's a single event and could be an isolated incident, and c) she claims this happens "regularly" but then does not support that claim. These can all be addressed, yes, and she might have drawn them out into a stronger article, but that doesn't happen.
If Handy had stopped right there, she could have explored her logistical case and made a fairly convincing, or at least interesting, argument. Instead, she switches gears to quite possibly the worst ban argument we see in Modern content: "Even looking past the precedent set by Second Sunrise a half-decade ago and the logistical side of things, how much fun is Ironworks adding to the format?" DOZENS of cards have been suggested as ban targets under this imagined rationale. Everyone can point to a Modern deck they view as unfun. Thankfully, as we have seen for literal years, cards are not banned because they are simply unfun in a subjective sense. They are banned because they violate certain criteria. Handy falls into that trap like many other authors who have unsuccessfully argued a card should be banned for being unfun. Worse, Handy falls short again when she claims Shoal was banned because it was "unfun" when it is literally cited as a T4 rules violator in every Wizards statement on the card. "Unfun" is never the criterion. Lots of decks in lots of formats are "unfun." The deck must be "unfun" in very specific ways, i.e. the established ban criteria that we have seen in past updates. Handy drifted from that and her argument fell apart as a result.
The suggestions of cards to be banned, however, are good ones. It was just the initial rationale that got her in trouble and makes the article fairly uncompelling.
As for KCI IMO it's just the final straw for all the reasons mentioned above. I'd hit stirrings because it hits other offenders in the format like Lantern and Tron. While (speaking of Tron specifically) it ebbs and flows, IMO it's put up some awful numbers in the last year for a deck that is supposed to be wildly inconsistent. Long have those days passed. Hitting Stirrings will make them far more likely to brick. I have a long long history of hating Tron and wanting it banned from the format but I will settle with a nerf to it's consistency. It's a pretty telling sign that almost all Stirring decks end up being degenerate at the end of the day.
Spirits
Well I think she may have been reading modern nexus's in depth analysis of how EE helps that deck fight through hate...
Besides that, I agree in decks with logistical issues being worth a ban even if they are neither dominant nor popular. Their product is partly entertainment. I think storm can push the envelope with this, as well, but usually within just a couple minutes you can tell the game is over. I remember tons of games where I was told "do you have grapeshot?" as I was moving forward. KCI checks off several boxes in addition:
1. Takes a significant amount of time (I'd argue at least ten minutes) to win
2. Can fizzle (so you can't even scoop early on)
3. Relies on very specific triggers (so you also have to pay attention to what your opponent is doing to make sure they don't screw up)
4. Isn't a simple loop (it isn't like devoted druid/vizier of remedies where you can explain it once then say you are doing it a thousand times and its accepted)
I wouldn't be surprised if a major event soon became notorious for taking an extra hour or two due to a KCI player with a good record.
I also think it is worth noting how so many pros seem to back up the idea that expensive cards should not be banned unless absolutely necessary. I don't agree with it - you should buy cards understanding that risk and accepting it.
Likewise, time reasons is why I really dislike the UW Control deck. I'd love some numbers to back it up but it seems like they almost always go to time in round unless they lose. The deck is decent enough but man I dislike the lack of good quick wincons. Part of it is on pilots not knowing when they need to slam that door shut and turn the corner and instead spend more time not losing.
That goes for any statement "proven" on scant anecdotes, not just this one.
In fact, why don't they just eliminate the five extra turns altogether and say "whoever has the most life after time is finished in the round is declared the winner of that game. If its a tie the game is a draw"
Seems simple enough and would keep tournaments running smoothly without any delays
As to the deck itself, its resiliency to hate by abusing the Mana Ability rules, is unprecedented. That it just main boards EE and laughs at even MORE hate cards, is just icing.
EDIT: To avoid the double post, this was last weekends Modern Classic at SCG Indy.
http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/StarCityGamescom_Classic/2018-07-29_modern_Indianapolis_IN_US/1/
Infect 1st
Burn 2nd
Infect 3rd
Ironworks Combo 4th
Humans 5th
R/G Land Destruction 6th
Four-Color Saheeli 7th
Dredge 8th
Spirits
It's not just standard. It's Team Trios (one on Standard, one on Modern and one on Legacy). The meta will be different than traditional Modern events though.
Spirits
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/premierplay/protour/pt25a
Says right in the first couple sentences.
Spirits
I like that. I am SO sick of draws when one of us would very clearly have won on turn 6-7 after time. For myself on Burn or the other player on Elves, it shouldn't be a draw when there is a 19 point life difference
While I agree, WOTC won't do that. Seriously, when is the last time they have changed the actual structure of a match or round of play? When they decided to change the PT top 8s to include an extra pre-board game in best of five scenarios. I can't remember anything beyond that.
I think it should be tiered like many other things: at competitive REL, no extra rounds. You should know how to play a 50 minute match or play a different deck. At FNM? Sure you try something new and may need extra time. Took me a couple nights out to figure out how to properly run storm from a dexterity perspective.
I don't think you even need to do that. Play a 2 mana creature with the text "all creatures lose all creature types".
Having played historically against Engineered Plague, I can tell you right now even at three mana, a permanent -1/-1 to all creatures of a given type is brutal. That's why Soul-Scar Mage and Goblin Chainwhirler are so brutal in standard. It's a massive blow against go wide aggro and even if someone has creatures that can survive the effect, that is -1 power for every creature on their side of the board. It's basically a win if you can get any kind of board presence to stick with the typical curve to power ratio.
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!
It's nice to see that Emma Handy's articles are enjoyable when she's not trying too hard to play heel.
Agree with most points: I can attest in the last Modern PTQ we had a KCI player went to time, the deck does take time when played by the average player and the mana speed of the ability combined with enormous consistence and resiliency does make it extremely tough.
That said, screw (since the other word ain't allowed) any "but the card is expensive" arguments when deciding which cards to ban (in this case Mox Opal). Trying to portray this with astroturf arguments like "customer confidence" when it's clearly "SCG store confidence in WotC not cutting their profit" is utterly lame. Using the price argument against banning a card is a giveaway that the card is indeed OP, and as a player, I don't lose confidence if a card gets banned as long as power level and metagame health are the criteria used. Nobody will suddenly sell his Goyfs, Jaces, Confidants and other overpriced jank cards just because "they could get hit by the banhammer just as Opal did".
Again, other than that, nice article. Extra points for defending Stirrings.
Handy's article is a refreshingly serious take on Modern as opposed to some of the offensive clickbait we've seen in a few past articles. That said, I don't find her argument very persuasive. These anecdotal logistical examples didn't even impact the tournaments in which they happened. If Handy had given an example in which KCI took 15 minutes to win in T5 of extra turns, delaying Round N of a GP for 15 minutes, that would be a very legitimate argument. But here, we would need to extrapolate these tangential examples to an end-of-round hypothetical that she can't even cite. It's too far removed to use the Sunrise precedent. I'm totally open to the argument and others should be too, but Handy doesn't argue it successfully. Props to her, however, for aiming at very limited bans and not the sweeping Opal or Stirrings suggestion (even if I think Stirrings should go or Preordain should return). Handy also commits one of the cardinal errors of ban arguments, which is mixing your criteria and not sticking to a point. For instance, when I and a few others argued that Bloom should be banned, we focused solely on its T4 rules violations. Handy is all over the place with logistical challenges, deck power, the "unfun" factor, etc. Minus extra points for stating that Shoal is banned for being unfun when it's literally cited as banned for violating the T4 rule. Moral: DON'T MIX BAN CRITERIA IN ARGUMENTS. It reads unprofessionally.
Re: Humans
Many of the anti-Humans arguments focus on tournaments and metagame compliations that don't inform Wizards' ban decisions. As far as we know, the only factors that matter are GP, PT, and MTGO. GP are probably the biggest (they are consistently cited in B&R updates over the years). We also know Wizards looks almost exclusively at T8s, or at least publicly states that in their B&R updates. So how is Humans doing at the GP T8 level? Welp, here are all decks with 2+ appearances across all 7 GP T8s in 2018 so far:
1. Gx Tron: 8
2. KCI: 6
3. Burn: 4
4. Jeskai Control: 4
5. Affinity: 3
6. Abzan: 3
7. RG Eldrazi: 3
8. UW Control: 3
9. GDS: 2
10. Humans: 2
11. Mardu: 2
12. Elves: 2
13. Bogles: 2
14. Amulet Titan: 2
Not exactly a dominant Humans performance at the GP level. (Incidentally, lol @ Stirrings decks). There are 8 full archetypes with more GP T8 finishes in 2018 so far. Adding the PT would bump Humans to 4 appearances, tying it with Jeskai, Abzan, and Burn, but still putting it below KCI and Gx Tron. So yeah, at the GP T8 level, Humans just isn't cutting it. Unless this changes or shifts, the Humans ban arguments just won't hold water.
I think the mulligan rule qualifies.
I like the way extra turns works now, but I do agree it needs something extra to prevent tournament logistics.
Maybe an extra timer like 10 minutes or 5 turns, whichever comes first... draw if either expires.
1 mana?
Engineered plague seems like the kind of card that would never even enter Standard. It destroys the kind of playstyle that WotC encourages for their flagship format.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Then why not just make rounds one hour though?
I think they like having a few turns as something of a balance against one person using a disproportionate amount of the clock. You can't always enforce that, so turns are something of a way to balance it out.
Except turns just favor people who take longer anyways. Player clocks would be better.
A stirrings ban might be enough to weaken the consistency of the KCI deck and make it a non-factor in the format, without needing to gut KCI itself.
I also still believe Mox Opal is not an unreasonable card to eliminate from the format, in return for the five artifact lands. This kills the KCI combo while still allowing affinity to soldier on with different tools at its disposal. The Hardened Scales affinity deck, which doesn't rely as heavily on Mox Opal anyway, gains Tree of Tales.
On the one hand, I agree that Handy does a good job of not initially muddling the KCI issue too much. For the first chunk of the article, she doesn't say the deck violates the T4 rule, doesn't say it's too dominant, doesn't say it leads to a sideboard battle, etc. She focuses solely on logistical elements of the deck. Logistics are a good reason to ban a card, specifically if a card/deck is pushing rounds past extra turns in a big way.
The problem is, she only presents one example of how KCI does this. Her example is also a bit confused. In her example, an opponent starts comboing with KCI with "a couple of minutes left on the clock." How many? We don't really know. It seems like it's about 3 given later quotes, but I'm not sure. Then the player continues to combo through those couple of minutes. For everyone else, the round is called and/or extra turns have started, but this player keeps comboing off for an additional 11 minutes beyond those initial "couple of minutes." Then there's a sleeve issue, which shouldn't be considered as a ban element and Handy muddles her argument and already confused timeline by including it. We don't know how long that issue took either. If we remove that, we see a player who ends his last turn of the game at least 10-11 minutes after the round was supposed to end. Handy then wins on her following turn after the player fizzled and his turn ran long.
This example could be a good one but a) Handy presents it poorly so it's really hard to tell how many minutes were added by KCI and how many were added by sleeves and other issues, b) it's a single event and could be an isolated incident, and c) she claims this happens "regularly" but then does not support that claim. These can all be addressed, yes, and she might have drawn them out into a stronger article, but that doesn't happen.
If Handy had stopped right there, she could have explored her logistical case and made a fairly convincing, or at least interesting, argument. Instead, she switches gears to quite possibly the worst ban argument we see in Modern content: "Even looking past the precedent set by Second Sunrise a half-decade ago and the logistical side of things, how much fun is Ironworks adding to the format?" DOZENS of cards have been suggested as ban targets under this imagined rationale. Everyone can point to a Modern deck they view as unfun. Thankfully, as we have seen for literal years, cards are not banned because they are simply unfun in a subjective sense. They are banned because they violate certain criteria. Handy falls into that trap like many other authors who have unsuccessfully argued a card should be banned for being unfun. Worse, Handy falls short again when she claims Shoal was banned because it was "unfun" when it is literally cited as a T4 rules violator in every Wizards statement on the card. "Unfun" is never the criterion. Lots of decks in lots of formats are "unfun." The deck must be "unfun" in very specific ways, i.e. the established ban criteria that we have seen in past updates. Handy drifted from that and her argument fell apart as a result.
The suggestions of cards to be banned, however, are good ones. It was just the initial rationale that got her in trouble and makes the article fairly uncompelling.