I think Twin comes with not so many upsides, but SFM would help create W's idendity and open up diversity.
Instead, Twin and diversity do not come hand in hand, as we probably know.
I mean, basically this for twin. If Twin gets unbanned, it is likely that no other UR based deck will be played. Why play Ur Phoenix, blue moon, or Through the breach, if Twin is always the best combo? This is basically the Wizard's argument. There is no reason because it will (probably) reduce diversity, while there doesn't seem to be a direct upside.
Will SFM open up diversity? Maybe, I would even say possibly, as it will create maybe 1-2 new archetypes. Will that be at the expense of other archetypes? If Wizard's think that the answer is resoundingly yes, as in 1-2 new decks arise, 5-6 decks become unplayable, then they don't have an upside. If they think the answer is no, then they will.
However, as Aaron said: It feels good just to be able to let things be. I know he referred mostly to standard, but I am fine with this logic in every format. It is good to know the rules, and not freak out every B&R announcement. The baseline is that there should be no changes, and for now that's where we are. I don't know why people can't see this.
When will people realize that Wotc does not want SFM in Modern? 5 years? 10 years? Never?
You might've said that for Jace or another pick of your choice, however many unlikely cards are not on the banlist anymore... SFM will be unbanned eventually.
I believe IdSurge's reaction is the most impatient and picky of all. Dude, you name 10+ decks that can win a GP and complain about that, then take a look in the past for a second. Take a look at other formats. Be patient, stuff will be banned / unbanned, it's not a matter of 3 months in Magic's life. Such fast moves only happen where a single deck or card suddenly warps the format : it's call an emergency case.
There are plenty of competitive decks to play (ramp, aggro, combo, control), and I can't believe players are still complaining that control is bad, linear decks are boring, etc... but when Lantern control comes out for example, those players aren't happy either. It's such a "cry-baby" behaviour. A few years back, good luck winning with a tribal deck. Now the wheel turns and different archetypes sorta dominate. Deal with it for Tibalt's sake !
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
There are some pros who don't want sfm in modern, but wanted jace. Pv f.ex
There were also pros that talked about how warping JTMS was going to be for Modern. Same for BBE. Same for AV before that. The format was more robust and adaptive than they believed and none of these cards were issues. The only card that proved to be an issue was GGT, which took not one, not two, but three absurd and untested new Dredge enablers from two future sets in order to be broken. SFM is a "when" not "if" ban.
As GK said, and as suggested by his AF quotation, there are some clear upsides to unbanning SFM. Unless you think she goes into UW Control or Humans, two top-tier white decks that historically might prevent a white card from being unbanned, then she would only serve to increase the share of less-played white strategies which are currently underrepresented across the board. Legacy is not a perfect comparison case to Modern, but it's helpful to look at deckbuilding trends there. From 01/2016 through present, there were only 20 UWx decks, per MTG Goldfish, that used both Terminus and SFM in Legacy tournaments. Only 4 of those were from 2018. Compare to 1130 UWx decks that used just Terminus and 1270 decks that used just SFM in the same period. When 1.5% of SFM decks and 1.7% of Terminus decks are using SFM, I think we can be reasonably confident that these cards won't pair very well together in Modern. Humans honestly could use her to shore up certain matchups, but as I said on a previous page, we don't need 100% certainty that Humans (a top-tier deck) wouldn't adopt her. We just need an intuition-based calculated risk. SFM almost certainly meets that bar.
Twin would probably be safe to unban in Modern in the sense that it wouldn't create a deck that is dominant. But the upside is less certain, especially if your format premium in Modern is diversity. It seems unlikely that Wizards unbans a card where the most likely scenario is a net reshuffling of diversity. That doesn't strike me as the kind of "upside" Wizards is looking for in a format they always advertise as the diversity play-what-you-want format. The other danger with Twin, one that idSurge even agreed with when I posed it, is that pros would gravitate to Twin because it fits pro playstyles and can be an easy audible in a wide format. This might create artificial inflation of Twin metagame share in a post-unban world, which could see Twin hit higher metagame shares at big events, even if it was fine at smaller ones. Again; where's the upside for Wizards? Might Twin reduce the share of so-called feelsbad linear decks? Probably, sure. But does Wizards seem to care about that in a going-on three year period of "No changes" with Modern consistently topping charts as the most-watched and most-played format? Probably not.
I think Twin comes with not so many upsides, but SFM would help create W's idendity and open up diversity.
Instead, Twin and diversity do not come hand in hand, as we probably know.
Why play Ur Phoenix, blue moon, or Through the breach, if Twin is always the best combo? This is basically the Wizard's argument. There is no reason because it will (probably) reduce diversity, while there doesn't seem to be a direct upside.
To be honest, I think this is a legitimately good reason to keep Splinter Twin on the ban list. I feel that a card like Arclight Phoenix would never be able to breath in Modern due to Splinter Twin. People could go on about how Arclight Phoenix only creates another linear combo deck with little interaction and how we need Splinter Twin to police the format so it doesn't just become Two Ships Sailing Past one another silently in the night, but I really don't think that's the case. I think the un-interactivity of Modern is blown out of proportion by people that deep down just want to go back to the "Pillar Format" (pointed out in Kathal's amazing post in the previous thread) but it just can't happen anymore.
When will people realize that Wotc does not want SFM in Modern? 5 years? 10 years? Never?
You might've said that for Jace or another pick of your choice, however many unlikely cards are not on the banlist anymore... SFM will be unbanned eventually.
I believe IdSurge's reaction is the most impatient and picky of all. Dude, you name 10+ decks that can win a GP and complain about that, then take a look in the past for a second. Take a look at other formats. Be patient, stuff will be banned / unbanned, it's not a matter of 3 months in Magic's life. Such fast moves only happen where a single deck or card suddenly warps the format : it's call an emergency case.
There are plenty of competitive decks to play (ramp, aggro, combo, control), and I can't believe players are still complaining that control is bad, linear decks are boring, etc... but when Lantern control comes out for example, those players aren't happy either. It's such a "cry-baby" behaviour. A few years back, good luck winning with a tribal deck. Now the wheel turns and different archetypes sorta dominate. Deal with it for Tibalt's sake !
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
But modern is already warped aroud Dredge - all decks triesto kill you as fast as dredge or faster. Or trying to kill you fastenough while disrupting (Humans and Spirits). Midrange and Control decks are in very bad spot now bcs of Dredge.
And as you saying - warped metagame is a reason for bans but Wizards are fine with and they don't want ban anything and keep printed broken cards and mechanics.
Abut broken mechanics and cards: JTMS and BBE are wrong unbans in my opinion bcs they're still brokencards. Ppl don't see them broken bcs Wizards don't want to ban other broken cards that surpress them.
[quote]
I believe IdSurge's reaction is the most impatient and picky of all. Dude, you name 10+ decks that can win a GP and complain about that, then take a look in the past for a second. Take a look at other formats. Be patient, stuff will be banned / unbanned, it's not a matter of 3 months in Magic's life. Such fast moves only happen where a single deck or card suddenly warps the format : it's call an emergency case.
There are plenty of competitive decks to play (ramp, aggro, combo, control), and I can't believe players are still complaining that control is bad, linear decks are boring, etc... but when Lantern control comes out for example, those players aren't happy either. It's such a "cry-baby" behaviour. A few years back, good luck winning with a tribal deck. Now the wheel turns and different archetypes sorta dominate. Deal with it for Tibalt's sake !
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
Fast moves? 3 months?
We are approaching 3 years. I've been patient. The only deck I would even consider playing for any period of time is Phoenix, and I'm playing that in Standard, against decks that are far less offensive to sit across from.
You are correct Affinity, Tron (less obnoxious at the time) Storm, Burn, and a few Aggro decks existed, Merfolk, instead of Humans (Folk are still around, its just one more option) etc etc. You know what else we had?
Twin. It lived WITH all those other decks, and was removed pointlessly.
Its not been 3 months. Its been 3 years.
Its all whatever to me at this point. They wont give back Twin, because if they are scared of a card like SFM, there is no WAY they are not worried about Twin.
Someone listed all the bad Blue Moon decks that would go away. Well guess what its one bloody deck. Its not 'Breach or Thing or Kiki' they are all the same deck, it would just be Blue Moon - Twin. The whole archetype of UR Control was propped up on that combo, because everything else that deck is doing, is NOT GOOD ENOUGH IN MODERN.
The last 3 years prove it, and I would put money down that anyone who says otherwise, has not played it even a fraction as much as I and cfusionpm have.
Yeah, I'm upset every announcement, because its clear the ban list is not for cards that are too good, at least in Modern's case. There is zero chance SFM takes over, literally zero.
If we are getting back into the unban Twin talks, then I will repeat a slightly altered version of what I said two years ago; If Twin is released back into the format, then yes, if you want to play a U/R deck then it is certainly the best option and may suppress of URx decks. However, if one looks at the current metagame, the only truly competitive decks in the colours are Storm, which is a separate archetype and will never use twin, and Death's Shadow which is more of a black deck that utilises blue's card selection and Stubborn Denial.
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
To reiterate idSurge's statement, the archetype of UR Tempo and control is dead, and has been since January 18, 2016. Furthermore, while I hate the use of the phrase 'format police,' that is exactly what twin would do in a meta of linearity and the ever-imposing threat of dredge.
Another day, another announcement where SFM is not unbanned.
Also, #banlistlogic was telling me that DTT would be unbanned because it was printed in UMA. Oh and GGT should have been unbanned too, for the same reason.
Refer to the MM15 printing of Splinter Twin for an example of why one cannot use logic when interpreting the ban list.
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
Did you catch the one, single, and glaringly obvious format staple missing from your list? The one that never saw its replacement for 3+ years? That thousands of players have tried for years to replace, replicate, or find anything like it, and failed every time? Or did that one just slip your mind during this trip down memory lane?
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
Yeah, if you're playing pretty much any UR deck that's not Storm, you are actively choosing to play bad deck and hope that variance lines up in your favor. Because no matter what you are trying to do, other decks do it better, faster, more reliably, or more resiliently. Other UR decks without Twin are just bad. There's no ifs ands or buts about it.
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
Did you catch the one, single, and glaringly obvious format staple missing from your list? The one that never saw its replacement for 3+ years? That thousands of players have tried for years to replace, replicate, or find anything like it, and failed every time? Or did that one just slip your mind during this trip down memory lane?
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
Yeah, if you're playing pretty much any UR deck that's not Storm, you are actively choosing to play bad deck and hope that variance lines up in your favor. Because no matter what you are trying to do, other decks do it better, faster, more reliably, or more resiliently. Other UR decks without Twin are just bad. There's no ifs ands or buts about it.
I had three of my decks banned or made irrelevant by new cards (Stubborn Cyclops, MarytrProc, Bloom Titan). It sucks. But instead of whining and moaning for three straight years, I moved on and played something different. I didn't turn any of those bans into a self-centered crusade based around making everyone on a website miserable.
We all know that even if a U/R deck suddenly did well, you would undermine it. First you complained about a lack of blue decks. Then when Merfolk made a resurgence, you complained it wasn't the right kind of blue deck. Then Grixis Shadow did well, and you complained that it wasn't enough of a control list. Then American and Grixis control did well, and you complained that they just got lucky/tournament was full of scrubs/deck is still garbage for other unspecified reason.
Nothing about this format will EVER satisfy you ever. Not unless the deck you have a dangerous obsession with comes back.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Although I do agree with your sentiment that people are too quick to conspiracy talk, it is rather convenient that AV, Bitterblossom, and Jace were reprinted right around the time of their unbanning. Of course, that’s not really sufficient evidence that they’re using the ban list as a tool for boosting sales on product.
I am normally just a lurker interested in seeing other people's opinions, but this assertion has been bothering me and no one has actively addressed it yet. And it isn't just you, so I don't mean for this to seem like I'm picking on you in particular. With that out of the way, this is false. Jace is the only card that has been reprinted close to its unbanning. A look through the unban history will show this, and I will put every card unbanned to prove it.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle:
Unbanned: Sept 2012
Closest reprint: None
Wild Nacatl:
Unbanned: Feb 2014
Closest reprint: Sept 2011 (AVB)
Bitterblossom:
Unbanned: Feb 2014
Closest reprint: May 2015 (MM2)
Golgari Grave-Troll:
Unbanned: Jan 2015
Closest reprint: Sept 2012 (IVG)
Sword of the Meek:
Unbanned: Apr 2016
Closest reprint: None
Ancestral Vision:
Unbanned: Apr 2016
Closest reprint: Nov 2017 (IMA)
Bloodbraid Elf:
Unbanned: Feb 2018
Closest reprint: Nov 2016 (PCA/C16)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Unbanned: Feb 2018
Closest reprint: Mar 2018 (A25)
Bloodbraid Elf was weird in that it was printed in 2 different products in the same month but neither product put a large supply of BBE into the market relative to an actual set, but her printing is kind of irrelevant. The important take away is that the only card reprinted close to its unbanning was Jace. The other 2 cards took over a year to be reprinted. I know a set can take a while to hit market after it begins being designed, but planning to ride a financial wave off a reprint that wss unbanned over a year prior is just foolish.
IT has started getting funny how some people take the B&R announcements so personally. I mean, every announcement we see people making grand statements about how Wizard's sucks and how they will stop play the format and how is it possible to keep playing this trash format, and here we are now, still playing and the same people discussing the same things with the same reactions.
I mean literally EVERY year, for the most part we get no changes. We never get a ton of bans/unbans a year. Maybe once or twice but that's that. If anything no changes should be expected by now.
While I agree that the cyclical pissing/moaning following B&R announcements can get overly dramatic, I don't believe all the hate / negativity is due to the actual fact that nothing was banned/unbanned. Rather, much of it is due to WotC's reluctance to use the opportunity for a "State of the Union" message addressing the health of the format. IMO, it's perfectly reasonable for players to be pissed off considering there's only a handful of times per year where the mothership has a chance to officially address format health and instead of explaining why there were no changes, they basically said, "Yup, nothing to see here. Now go **** off until January when we may/may not tell you to go **** yourself again". I'm pretty sure most rationale players don't actually expect changes every time; most of the time they just expect some morsel of insight from the jabronis who run the show. It might surprise some folks, but WotC decision makers aren't totally incompetent; whether it's from pros or monitoring forums/reddit/social media/etc, they're aware of how players currently perceive the format and their concerns/lack thereof.
Acknowledging those perceptions/concerns and discussing their take on the state of the format is the very least they could do to communicate with players. And that's why we ***** and moan, because at the end of the day, this company/subsidiary continues to demonstrate their ineptitude. With all the mass communication tools we have in today's day and age, there's zero reason not to engage players if you're a company attempting to grow your player base and deliver a quality experience. I've never threatened to stop playing the game, because I've accepted that's how WotC chooses to treat consumers, but I have and will continue to say "Wizards sucks".
If we are getting back into the unban Twin talks, then I will repeat a slightly altered version of what I said two years ago; If Twin is released back into the format, then yes, if you want to play a U/R deck then it is certainly the best option and may suppress of URx decks. However, if one looks at the current metagame, the only truly competitive decks in the colours are Storm, which is a separate archetype and will never use twin, and Death's Shadow which is more of a black deck that utilises blue's card selection and Stubborn Denial.
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
To reiterate idSurge's statement, the archetype of UR Tempo and control is dead, and has been since January 18, 2016. Furthermore, while I hate the use of the phrase 'format police,' that is exactly what twin would do in a meta of linearity and the ever-imposing threat of dredge.
police against unfair using unfair Combo. This i will Never be logical to me. Killing 8% of unfair Decks overall with 8% unfair Combo it feels like an police fighting crime together with Mafia. Shadow was fair police, humans is police...but not twin
I don't post in this thread much and merely read on it periodically without commentary, but the Twin talk should be banned again imo. Contributes literally nothing to the thread other than derailment and *****posting. Everyone and their mother already knows what Twin is and what it would and would not do to the format, and no one is changing anybody's mind. Thus, Twinposting is just a breeding ground for verbally loaded and very opinionated posts with the same old song and dance from a few folks who are on some kind of personal crusade, and stymies any kind of meaningful discussion about literally any other aspects of Modern. Which would be cool and good, I guess, if it was once in a while, not every 5 pages or so and at every B&R announcement. And it's always the same jaded fellas.
So, I asked Aaron Forsythe to commend a little bit on what does he mean saying "there is no upside for banning a card". I then asked him to tell us if the same applies to modern as well, but he never answered. Does anybody here think that he can extrapolate information about Modern, from this post that regards Ferocidon?
gkourou
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Mr. Forsythe, can you elaborate briefly about when there is an obvious upside? In what way? Greetings!
Matthew Z
If Standard is great right now (which seems to be a pretty popular opinion from Twitch/Reddit) why drop a bombshell into it? How much brewing joy or novelty is Ferocidon going to generate?
Aaron Forsythe
Matthew is pretty accurate with his speculation. Standard is really good right now, we didn't test Ferocidon in this environment, we know that when red is too good it pushes green and white creatures out, let's not reopen that can of worms.
Maybe they think Modern is also really good right now? So nothing came off the ban list.
Anyway, I'm not salty that nothing was changed. Will just keep playing the decks that I enjoy playing.
The people asking Forsythe to unban Ferocidon in Standard amuse me. Mono-red players know that card isn't ok in Standard. The red deck is really really strong, and it's only being held back because you can't beat Golgari. Ferocidon swings that matchup by nullifying Wildgrowth Walker, which would basically mean mono-red would have no bad matchups. Let's try to keep discussion on Modern in this thread, please! --CWP
It's funny to see modern in the light of an actually GOOD standard format for the first time in years, it really highlights how many decks in modern demand you to play obnoxious non-games of "stop the one thing I do".
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
It's funny to see modern in the light of an actually GOOD standard format for the first time in years, it really highlights how many decks in modern demand you to play obnoxious non-games of "stop the one thing I do".
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
You don't "instalose" to Blood Moon unless you're not interacting yourself minding your own business or you aren't fetching basics.In fact, if you find yourself losing to "sideboard cards" like Ensnaring Bridge, Choke, Blood Moon, Rest in Peace or Stony Silence too often, it's probably because you're up to some fishy business yourself. And it's not like there aren't answers for these cards. If you're complaining about format safety valves for degenerate strategies, chances are you're playing a degenerate strategy yourself. Furthermore, if you have "non-games" with Storm (which solely asks you to run creature removal), Tron, Dredge and KCI, it's probably because you're not interacting with them due to playing a non-interactive deck yourself. In which case, their combo is either faster, more consistent or more impactful than yours, and that's a concession you make when you pick up a deck.
The people asking Forsythe to unban Ferocidon in Standard amuse me. Mono-red players know that card isn't ok in Standard. The red deck is really really strong, and it's only being held back because you can't beat Golgari. Ferocidon swings that matchup by nullifying Wildgrowth Walker, which would basically mean mono-red would have no bad matchups.
Thanks for mentioning the walker. I don't play standard, so don't know about the card. Looks good for homebrewing an explore deck when I don't have anything else to do.
It's funny to see modern in the light of an actually GOOD standard format for the first time in years, it really highlights how many decks in modern demand you to play obnoxious non-games of "stop the one thing I do".
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
You don't "instalose" to Blood Moon unless you're not interacting yourself minding your own business or you aren't fetching basics.In fact, if you find yourself losing to "sideboard cards" like Ensnaring Bridge, Choke, Blood Moon, Rest in Peace or Stony Silence too often, it's probably because you're up to some fishy business yourself. And it's not like there aren't answers for these cards. If you're complaining about format safety valves for degenerate strategies, chances are you're playing a degenerate strategy yourself. Furthermore, if you have "non-games" with Storm (which solely asks you to run creature removal), Tron, Dredge and KCI, it's probably because you're not interacting with them due to playing a non-interactive deck yourself. In which case, their combo is either faster, more consistent or more impactful than yours, and that's a concession you make when you pick up a deck.
You are answering me like I have always looked at modern myself before; you can beat these cards if you just sideboard versus them. If you have to rely on the 4-ish copies of relevant cards in your 60 card deck or INSTANTLY lose, that is not an entertaining game. Look at it from the other side; how does blood moon being a card in any way add something good to the modern format? You CAN play around it, but why should you? What gameplay does blood moon add other than just randomly ending games? I've had plenty of games with 2 or 1 color decks where I recognise my opponent plays a blood moon deck from their turn 1-2 plays, looked at my hand without answers and just have to hope they don't have it or instantly lose
Storm does not get beaten by creature removal, it can easily go off with your removal spell on the stack. Is it beatable, yes of course, it isn't a broken deck by modern standards, but why are you just accepting this is the game; I do my thing, you do yours, we have this one moment of crucial interaction and if I don't have it I instantly lose.
Let me put it in another way; the way current modern works, it pushes the influence of variance in the game to the absolute maximum. You HAVE to accept you will have 80-20 matchups no matter what you play, and you HAVE to accept that plenty of games will end up revolving around maybe 8 out of your 75 cards and the entire game is decided around drawing those few cards. Of couse variance is always a factor in a card game, but modern ends games before they start with much fewer degrees of freedom on these luck factors.
Finally, mind you that it is none of these single decks or cards that is the problem, it is the massive abundance of them. If there were one or two of these almost spanish inquisition-like decks it would be fine, but the absolute abundance of them is what has gotten on my nerves. Modern players have accepted that this matchup lottery factor is inherent to modern but it really doesnt have to be.
EDIT: hold on, you misinterpreted what I said. I almost exclusively play fair decks, I am conplaining about the subgame of playing stony or rip being the only thing that really matters, regardless on what side of the table I am sitting. This is not some plea to ban sideboard hosers dear god no, this is a plea that a meta in which they are the norm should not be
You are answering me like I have always looked at modern myself before; you can beat these cards if you just sideboard versus them. If you have to rely on the 4-ish copies of relevant cards in your 60 card deck or INSTANTLY lose, that is not an entertaining game. Look at it from the other side; how does blood moon being a card in any way add something good to the modern format? You CAN play around it, but why should you? What gameplay does blood moon add other than just randomly ending games? I've had plenty of games with 2 or 1 color decks where I recognise my opponent plays a blood moon deck from their turn 1-2 plays, looked at my hand without answers and just have to hope they don't have it or instantly lose
You don't have 4-ish relevant mainboard copies against Blood Moon, nor you should sideboard against it unless you're on Valakut or Tron. You just have to fetch a basic or two and you're golden. Furthermore, there are plenty of answers against a Moon: Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Logic Knot, Stubborn Denial, Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Aether Vial, Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage, Noble Hierarch, Spell Queller, playing less than three colors, plain old racing... As you see, there's no shortage of them. If you know as soon as turn 1-2 a Blood Moon coming and decide to either not play around it by fetching basics or keep an answer against it, then that's entirely on you. I don't know what kind of deck you're playing, but I just listed answers for every kind of deck archetype. The ones that don't run those (and some that do) either can fetch for basics or don't care about Moon. About what Moon adds to the format: it's a police card. It keeps the format from devolving into degenerate 4-5 color goodstuff. Since you're drawing comparisons to Standard: remember the Khans-Zendikar Standard full of the same 4 color decks? Because that's what would happen. Unless you're willing to bring Wasteland to Modern, I'd leave Blood Moon as is.
Storm does not get beaten by creature removal, it can easily go off with your removal spell on the stack. Is it beatable, yes of course, it isn't a broken deck by modern standards, but why are you just accepting this is the game; I do my thing, you do yours, we have this one moment of crucial interaction and if I don't have it I instantly lose.
Again, looks like you're playing some kind of linear deck yourself that so just happens to be slower than Storm. You don't have "one moment of crucial interaction". On top of every deck having removal spells (even Burn, which is the epitome of linear, can point Bolts towards the bears) you have discard spells like Seize, Inquisition, Freebooter, Thought-Knot Seer or Tidehollow Sculler, general purpose cards that happen to ***** on Storm like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Meddling Mage, Mausoleum Wanderer, Spell Queller or Meddling Mage or straight up counterspells. Again, these are all answers you're packing G1, and not exactly as singletons. If you lack any of those AND removal spells you have to ask yourself if you really want to interact with your opponent.
Let me put it in another way; the way current modern works, it pushes the influence of variance in the game to the absolute maximum. You HAVE to accept you will have 80-20 matchups no matter what you play, and you HAVE to accept that plenty of games will end up revolving around maybe 8 out of your 75 cards and the entire game is decided around drawing those few cards. Of couse variance is always a factor in a card game, but modern ends games before they start with much fewer degrees of freedom on these luck factors.
As ktkenshinx has stated multiple times and people seem to be hellbent on ignoring, if Modern were this meme format of 80-20 lopsided matchups and sideboard lotto, pros wouldn't have the roughly the same winrate on Modern than other formats.
Finally, mind you that it is none of these single decks or cards that is the problem, it is the massive abundance of them. If there were one or two of these almost spanish inquisition-like decks it would be fine, but the absolute abundance of them is what has gotten on my nerves. Modern players have accepted that this matchup lottery factor is inherent to modern but it really doesnt have to be.
Again, if sideboard lotto was real we wouldn't see the same players winning over and over again. While it's true that the linearity at the moment is a bit high, it's in no way a bad spot. Control just made a resurgence after years of sucking, and Jund now has Trophy and BBE. Dredge is being a big offender at the moment, but the meta is being really diverse.
EDIT: hold on, you misinterpreted what I said. I almost exclusively play fair decks, I am conplaining about the subgame of playing stony or rip being the only thing that really matters, regardless on what side of the table I am sitting. This is not some plea to ban sideboard hosers dear god no, this is a plea that a meta in which they are the norm should not be
Well, fair decks certainly have ways to compete against degeneracy. Humans, Spirits, Jund and Miracles are all top tier fair decks. Sideboard hosers exist in all formats except Standard, because there the card pool is a lot smaller and cards less powerful, and a stone-cold hoser like Moon where you can't fetch basics to play around it and only have Trophy and Conclave Tribunal as your outs would have a massive negative effect.
About resolving the hoser being the only thing that matters, there's no subgame of playing the sideboard card. That's an overexaggeration. I know it's anecdotal, but I've beaten people through Stony Silence on Affinity. I've beaten Dredge before drawing my RiP. Hell, I've even beaten Storm before drawing either RiP or Sphere and that's a nigh unwinnable matchup for Affinity. And I'm pretty sure a lot of players have beaten people through their suppossedly game-winning sideboard hoser. And let's not be disingenuous, either: you have to keep applying pressure after deploying a hoser, because decks that get dunked on that hard by hosers have answers for them.
Your question about bloodmoon and beeing not funny. You know what is not funny? People fetching, searching, shuffling each turn...then give me their cards and i shuffle it again. Next turn same again. This take so much time and fun away to me, games are long without doing anythink real, but after moon it stops and games are faster and now we really start playing. each of us have other definitions about fun. Without moon, people play 4 colors and games are 40% only shuffling and searching...this is why we need it too. I dont want waiting each turn several minutes for only putting 1 Land into game...not funny, is this a good game for your opponent? You think this feels better to me each game as moon four you in 5% of games? so you scoop to moon, i am happy dont wasting time for fetch after fetch and sleeping while
This thread is again going off the rails. I feel this happened last time too; we had a "No Changes" update, people went crazy in the thread, and after a few weeks of venting, everything chilled out. By October, the thread was largely a ghost town of some sporadic Twin arguments and discussions about Stirrings and Preordain. Now we're back at the anger cycle where people are making wild accusations and allegations about the format and Wizards' format management.
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I thought this comment was going to be about the battle of sideboards element that got GGT banned. Then I read about Blood Moon and realized it's the typical Modern complaints we've seen and debunked for years. Moon is not a strong card. That's why few top decks use it. If it was the kind of insta-losing SB tech you allege, we would see it more. We would see Blue Moon played more as a deck, and we would see more Grishoalbrand (a deck that should check off all your boxes of what makes a powerful Modern deck). We don't see any of those things, however, because the "broken" Modern you allege exists is not the overall experience of the format. It might be your personal experience due to the deck you play, the area you play in, and/or the game decisions you make, but it's nothing Wizards will develop banlist policy based on. It hasn't been for 3 years now. Nothing about cards like Moon has changed in that time. Might Modern have issues? Yes, and those issues could be with Dredge (see stuff like MD RIP in UW Control) and Stirrings. But unless someone has an actual data-driven case about other issues to make, I haven't seen anything else worth discussing from a ban perspective.
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
T4 rule misinterpretations are a clear sign to me that the thread is going off the rails. Decks must be both top-tier AND consistently winning pre-T4 to violate this rule. No decks are currently doing this.
Standard is bad- nochanges we need to fix standard.
Standard is good- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is bad- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is good- we should keep an eye on things so we can push people into playing standard.
This kind of pithy comment is all too common in the Twitch chat and Reddit age. It sounds good and garners upvotes, but it doesn't remotely describe what literally happened this year. See BBE and JTMS being unbanned when Modern was good and Standard was bad just to improve Modern more. When you have a literal counterexample to your allegation in the last 12 months, it's clearly an allegation that needs reworking.
Let me put it in another way; the way current modern works, it pushes the influence of variance in the game to the absolute maximum. You HAVE to accept you will have 80-20 matchups no matter what you play, and you HAVE to accept that plenty of games will end up revolving around maybe 8 out of your 75 cards and the entire game is decided around drawing those few cards. Of couse variance is always a factor in a card game, but modern ends games before they start with much fewer degrees of freedom on these luck factors.
There are no top-tier 80/20 matchups in Modern. There haven't been for 3 years. I have debunked this outrageous claim numerous times. To reiterate, top players have the same MWP in Modern as in other formats. They also have the same MWP variance and MWP ceiling. Notably, they further have the same Modern MWP as they do in BOTH Legacy and Standard; the only outliers are player-specific (e.g. Reid Duke is better at Modern than Standard), but across the board, the averages and spread are identical. If Modern was packed with 80/20 matchups as you and hoards of Modern critics have alleged, this would not be the case.
I understand that people are dissatisfied with a "No changes" update, and I understand that people want more communication from Wizards. Those are reasonable desires; arguing for an SFM unban or better Wizards updates and transparency are great topics. A meaningful "battle of sideboards" discussion through the lens of GGT might be fine too. Or Stirrings analysis. But fuming about long-debunked Modern issues is not the way to go, even if it happens every time Wizards does a "No changes" update on a metagame that some people perceive issues with.
the existence of burn or other hyper aggro decks does far more curbing of greedy mana bases than blood moon ever has. in fact blood moon asks the opponent to play more basics AND fetches, its all the other duals that really suffer. its pretty easy to lose to BM just playing a 2 color deck; especially ones that arent playing red.
ive never been a fan of blood moon, but ive accepted its place in the format (meaning ive never advocated for its ban). i just think its disingenuous to paint it in a light that is anything other than a free win generator that props up a lot of deck that would otherwise be underpowered.
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Will SFM open up diversity? Maybe, I would even say possibly, as it will create maybe 1-2 new archetypes. Will that be at the expense of other archetypes? If Wizard's think that the answer is resoundingly yes, as in 1-2 new decks arise, 5-6 decks become unplayable, then they don't have an upside. If they think the answer is no, then they will.
However, as Aaron said: It feels good just to be able to let things be. I know he referred mostly to standard, but I am fine with this logic in every format. It is good to know the rules, and not freak out every B&R announcement. The baseline is that there should be no changes, and for now that's where we are. I don't know why people can't see this.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
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You might've said that for Jace or another pick of your choice, however many unlikely cards are not on the banlist anymore... SFM will be unbanned eventually.
I believe IdSurge's reaction is the most impatient and picky of all. Dude, you name 10+ decks that can win a GP and complain about that, then take a look in the past for a second. Take a look at other formats. Be patient, stuff will be banned / unbanned, it's not a matter of 3 months in Magic's life. Such fast moves only happen where a single deck or card suddenly warps the format : it's call an emergency case.
There are plenty of competitive decks to play (ramp, aggro, combo, control), and I can't believe players are still complaining that control is bad, linear decks are boring, etc... but when Lantern control comes out for example, those players aren't happy either. It's such a "cry-baby" behaviour. A few years back, good luck winning with a tribal deck. Now the wheel turns and different archetypes sorta dominate. Deal with it for Tibalt's sake !
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
There were also pros that talked about how warping JTMS was going to be for Modern. Same for BBE. Same for AV before that. The format was more robust and adaptive than they believed and none of these cards were issues. The only card that proved to be an issue was GGT, which took not one, not two, but three absurd and untested new Dredge enablers from two future sets in order to be broken. SFM is a "when" not "if" ban.
As GK said, and as suggested by his AF quotation, there are some clear upsides to unbanning SFM. Unless you think she goes into UW Control or Humans, two top-tier white decks that historically might prevent a white card from being unbanned, then she would only serve to increase the share of less-played white strategies which are currently underrepresented across the board. Legacy is not a perfect comparison case to Modern, but it's helpful to look at deckbuilding trends there. From 01/2016 through present, there were only 20 UWx decks, per MTG Goldfish, that used both Terminus and SFM in Legacy tournaments. Only 4 of those were from 2018. Compare to 1130 UWx decks that used just Terminus and 1270 decks that used just SFM in the same period. When 1.5% of SFM decks and 1.7% of Terminus decks are using SFM, I think we can be reasonably confident that these cards won't pair very well together in Modern. Humans honestly could use her to shore up certain matchups, but as I said on a previous page, we don't need 100% certainty that Humans (a top-tier deck) wouldn't adopt her. We just need an intuition-based calculated risk. SFM almost certainly meets that bar.
Twin would probably be safe to unban in Modern in the sense that it wouldn't create a deck that is dominant. But the upside is less certain, especially if your format premium in Modern is diversity. It seems unlikely that Wizards unbans a card where the most likely scenario is a net reshuffling of diversity. That doesn't strike me as the kind of "upside" Wizards is looking for in a format they always advertise as the diversity play-what-you-want format. The other danger with Twin, one that idSurge even agreed with when I posed it, is that pros would gravitate to Twin because it fits pro playstyles and can be an easy audible in a wide format. This might create artificial inflation of Twin metagame share in a post-unban world, which could see Twin hit higher metagame shares at big events, even if it was fine at smaller ones. Again; where's the upside for Wizards? Might Twin reduce the share of so-called feelsbad linear decks? Probably, sure. But does Wizards seem to care about that in a going-on three year period of "No changes" with Modern consistently topping charts as the most-watched and most-played format? Probably not.
To be honest, I think this is a legitimately good reason to keep Splinter Twin on the ban list. I feel that a card like Arclight Phoenix would never be able to breath in Modern due to Splinter Twin. People could go on about how Arclight Phoenix only creates another linear combo deck with little interaction and how we need Splinter Twin to police the format so it doesn't just become Two Ships Sailing Past one another silently in the night, but I really don't think that's the case. I think the un-interactivity of Modern is blown out of proportion by people that deep down just want to go back to the "Pillar Format" (pointed out in Kathal's amazing post in the previous thread) but it just can't happen anymore.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
But modern is already warped aroud Dredge - all decks triesto kill you as fast as dredge or faster. Or trying to kill you fastenough while disrupting (Humans and Spirits). Midrange and Control decks are in very bad spot now bcs of Dredge.
And as you saying - warped metagame is a reason for bans but Wizards are fine with and they don't want ban anything and keep printed broken cards and mechanics.
Abut broken mechanics and cards: JTMS and BBE are wrong unbans in my opinion bcs they're still brokencards. Ppl don't see them broken bcs Wizards don't want to ban other broken cards that surpress them.
Fast moves? 3 months?
We are approaching 3 years. I've been patient. The only deck I would even consider playing for any period of time is Phoenix, and I'm playing that in Standard, against decks that are far less offensive to sit across from.
You are correct Affinity, Tron (less obnoxious at the time) Storm, Burn, and a few Aggro decks existed, Merfolk, instead of Humans (Folk are still around, its just one more option) etc etc. You know what else we had?
Twin. It lived WITH all those other decks, and was removed pointlessly.
Its not been 3 months. Its been 3 years.
Its all whatever to me at this point. They wont give back Twin, because if they are scared of a card like SFM, there is no WAY they are not worried about Twin.
Someone listed all the bad Blue Moon decks that would go away. Well guess what its one bloody deck. Its not 'Breach or Thing or Kiki' they are all the same deck, it would just be Blue Moon - Twin. The whole archetype of UR Control was propped up on that combo, because everything else that deck is doing, is NOT GOOD ENOUGH IN MODERN.
The last 3 years prove it, and I would put money down that anyone who says otherwise, has not played it even a fraction as much as I and cfusionpm have.
Yeah, I'm upset every announcement, because its clear the ban list is not for cards that are too good, at least in Modern's case. There is zero chance SFM takes over, literally zero.
Spirits
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
To reiterate idSurge's statement, the archetype of UR Tempo and control is dead, and has been since January 18, 2016. Furthermore, while I hate the use of the phrase 'format police,' that is exactly what twin would do in a meta of linearity and the ever-imposing threat of dredge.
StandardArena:U/R Drakes
Modern
URStormUR
UBRDeath's ShadowUBR
Refer to the MM15 printing of Splinter Twin for an example of why one cannot use logic when interpreting the ban list.
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Did you catch the one, single, and glaringly obvious format staple missing from your list? The one that never saw its replacement for 3+ years? That thousands of players have tried for years to replace, replicate, or find anything like it, and failed every time? Or did that one just slip your mind during this trip down memory lane?
Yeah, if you're playing pretty much any UR deck that's not Storm, you are actively choosing to play bad deck and hope that variance lines up in your favor. Because no matter what you are trying to do, other decks do it better, faster, more reliably, or more resiliently. Other UR decks without Twin are just bad. There's no ifs ands or buts about it.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I had three of my decks banned or made irrelevant by new cards (Stubborn Cyclops, MarytrProc, Bloom Titan). It sucks. But instead of whining and moaning for three straight years, I moved on and played something different. I didn't turn any of those bans into a self-centered crusade based around making everyone on a website miserable.
We all know that even if a U/R deck suddenly did well, you would undermine it. First you complained about a lack of blue decks. Then when Merfolk made a resurgence, you complained it wasn't the right kind of blue deck. Then Grixis Shadow did well, and you complained that it wasn't enough of a control list. Then American and Grixis control did well, and you complained that they just got lucky/tournament was full of scrubs/deck is still garbage for other unspecified reason.
Nothing about this format will EVER satisfy you ever. Not unless the deck you have a dangerous obsession with comes back.
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I am normally just a lurker interested in seeing other people's opinions, but this assertion has been bothering me and no one has actively addressed it yet. And it isn't just you, so I don't mean for this to seem like I'm picking on you in particular. With that out of the way, this is false. Jace is the only card that has been reprinted close to its unbanning. A look through the unban history will show this, and I will put every card unbanned to prove it.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle:
Unbanned: Sept 2012
Closest reprint: None
Wild Nacatl:
Unbanned: Feb 2014
Closest reprint: Sept 2011 (AVB)
Bitterblossom:
Unbanned: Feb 2014
Closest reprint: May 2015 (MM2)
Golgari Grave-Troll:
Unbanned: Jan 2015
Closest reprint: Sept 2012 (IVG)
Sword of the Meek:
Unbanned: Apr 2016
Closest reprint: None
Ancestral Vision:
Unbanned: Apr 2016
Closest reprint: Nov 2017 (IMA)
Bloodbraid Elf:
Unbanned: Feb 2018
Closest reprint: Nov 2016 (PCA/C16)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Unbanned: Feb 2018
Closest reprint: Mar 2018 (A25)
Bloodbraid Elf was weird in that it was printed in 2 different products in the same month but neither product put a large supply of BBE into the market relative to an actual set, but her printing is kind of irrelevant. The important take away is that the only card reprinted close to its unbanning was Jace. The other 2 cards took over a year to be reprinted. I know a set can take a while to hit market after it begins being designed, but planning to ride a financial wave off a reprint that wss unbanned over a year prior is just foolish.
While I agree that the cyclical pissing/moaning following B&R announcements can get overly dramatic, I don't believe all the hate / negativity is due to the actual fact that nothing was banned/unbanned. Rather, much of it is due to WotC's reluctance to use the opportunity for a "State of the Union" message addressing the health of the format. IMO, it's perfectly reasonable for players to be pissed off considering there's only a handful of times per year where the mothership has a chance to officially address format health and instead of explaining why there were no changes, they basically said, "Yup, nothing to see here. Now go **** off until January when we may/may not tell you to go **** yourself again". I'm pretty sure most rationale players don't actually expect changes every time; most of the time they just expect some morsel of insight from the jabronis who run the show. It might surprise some folks, but WotC decision makers aren't totally incompetent; whether it's from pros or monitoring forums/reddit/social media/etc, they're aware of how players currently perceive the format and their concerns/lack thereof.
Acknowledging those perceptions/concerns and discussing their take on the state of the format is the very least they could do to communicate with players. And that's why we ***** and moan, because at the end of the day, this company/subsidiary continues to demonstrate their ineptitude. With all the mass communication tools we have in today's day and age, there's zero reason not to engage players if you're a company attempting to grow your player base and deliver a quality experience. I've never threatened to stop playing the game, because I've accepted that's how WotC chooses to treat consumers, but I have and will continue to say "Wizards sucks".
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Maybe they think Modern is also really good right now? So nothing came off the ban list.
Anyway, I'm not salty that nothing was changed. Will just keep playing the decks that I enjoy playing.
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Let's try to keep discussion on Modern in this thread, please! --CWP
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
You don't "instalose" to Blood Moon unless you're not interacting yourself minding your own business or you aren't fetching basics.In fact, if you find yourself losing to "sideboard cards" like Ensnaring Bridge, Choke, Blood Moon, Rest in Peace or Stony Silence too often, it's probably because you're up to some fishy business yourself. And it's not like there aren't answers for these cards. If you're complaining about format safety valves for degenerate strategies, chances are you're playing a degenerate strategy yourself. Furthermore, if you have "non-games" with Storm (which solely asks you to run creature removal), Tron, Dredge and KCI, it's probably because you're not interacting with them due to playing a non-interactive deck yourself. In which case, their combo is either faster, more consistent or more impactful than yours, and that's a concession you make when you pick up a deck.
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Thanks for mentioning the walker. I don't play standard, so don't know about the card. Looks good for homebrewing an explore deck when I don't have anything else to do.
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Standard is good- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is bad- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is good- we should keep an eye on things so we can push people into playing standard.
You are answering me like I have always looked at modern myself before; you can beat these cards if you just sideboard versus them. If you have to rely on the 4-ish copies of relevant cards in your 60 card deck or INSTANTLY lose, that is not an entertaining game. Look at it from the other side; how does blood moon being a card in any way add something good to the modern format? You CAN play around it, but why should you? What gameplay does blood moon add other than just randomly ending games? I've had plenty of games with 2 or 1 color decks where I recognise my opponent plays a blood moon deck from their turn 1-2 plays, looked at my hand without answers and just have to hope they don't have it or instantly lose
Storm does not get beaten by creature removal, it can easily go off with your removal spell on the stack. Is it beatable, yes of course, it isn't a broken deck by modern standards, but why are you just accepting this is the game; I do my thing, you do yours, we have this one moment of crucial interaction and if I don't have it I instantly lose.
Let me put it in another way; the way current modern works, it pushes the influence of variance in the game to the absolute maximum. You HAVE to accept you will have 80-20 matchups no matter what you play, and you HAVE to accept that plenty of games will end up revolving around maybe 8 out of your 75 cards and the entire game is decided around drawing those few cards. Of couse variance is always a factor in a card game, but modern ends games before they start with much fewer degrees of freedom on these luck factors.
Finally, mind you that it is none of these single decks or cards that is the problem, it is the massive abundance of them. If there were one or two of these almost spanish inquisition-like decks it would be fine, but the absolute abundance of them is what has gotten on my nerves. Modern players have accepted that this matchup lottery factor is inherent to modern but it really doesnt have to be.
EDIT: hold on, you misinterpreted what I said. I almost exclusively play fair decks, I am conplaining about the subgame of playing stony or rip being the only thing that really matters, regardless on what side of the table I am sitting. This is not some plea to ban sideboard hosers dear god no, this is a plea that a meta in which they are the norm should not be
You don't have 4-ish relevant mainboard copies against Blood Moon, nor you should sideboard against it unless you're on Valakut or Tron. You just have to fetch a basic or two and you're golden. Furthermore, there are plenty of answers against a Moon: Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Logic Knot, Stubborn Denial, Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Aether Vial, Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage, Noble Hierarch, Spell Queller, playing less than three colors, plain old racing... As you see, there's no shortage of them. If you know as soon as turn 1-2 a Blood Moon coming and decide to either not play around it by fetching basics or keep an answer against it, then that's entirely on you. I don't know what kind of deck you're playing, but I just listed answers for every kind of deck archetype. The ones that don't run those (and some that do) either can fetch for basics or don't care about Moon. About what Moon adds to the format: it's a police card. It keeps the format from devolving into degenerate 4-5 color goodstuff. Since you're drawing comparisons to Standard: remember the Khans-Zendikar Standard full of the same 4 color decks? Because that's what would happen. Unless you're willing to bring Wasteland to Modern, I'd leave Blood Moon as is.
Again, looks like you're playing some kind of linear deck yourself that so just happens to be slower than Storm. You don't have "one moment of crucial interaction". On top of every deck having removal spells (even Burn, which is the epitome of linear, can point Bolts towards the bears) you have discard spells like Seize, Inquisition, Freebooter, Thought-Knot Seer or Tidehollow Sculler, general purpose cards that happen to ***** on Storm like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Meddling Mage, Mausoleum Wanderer, Spell Queller or Meddling Mage or straight up counterspells. Again, these are all answers you're packing G1, and not exactly as singletons. If you lack any of those AND removal spells you have to ask yourself if you really want to interact with your opponent.
As ktkenshinx has stated multiple times and people seem to be hellbent on ignoring, if Modern were this meme format of 80-20 lopsided matchups and sideboard lotto, pros wouldn't have the roughly the same winrate on Modern than other formats.
Again, if sideboard lotto was real we wouldn't see the same players winning over and over again. While it's true that the linearity at the moment is a bit high, it's in no way a bad spot. Control just made a resurgence after years of sucking, and Jund now has Trophy and BBE. Dredge is being a big offender at the moment, but the meta is being really diverse.
Well, fair decks certainly have ways to compete against degeneracy. Humans, Spirits, Jund and Miracles are all top tier fair decks. Sideboard hosers exist in all formats except Standard, because there the card pool is a lot smaller and cards less powerful, and a stone-cold hoser like Moon where you can't fetch basics to play around it and only have Trophy and Conclave Tribunal as your outs would have a massive negative effect.
About resolving the hoser being the only thing that matters, there's no subgame of playing the sideboard card. That's an overexaggeration. I know it's anecdotal, but I've beaten people through Stony Silence on Affinity. I've beaten Dredge before drawing my RiP. Hell, I've even beaten Storm before drawing either RiP or Sphere and that's a nigh unwinnable matchup for Affinity. And I'm pretty sure a lot of players have beaten people through their suppossedly game-winning sideboard hoser. And let's not be disingenuous, either: you have to keep applying pressure after deploying a hoser, because decks that get dunked on that hard by hosers have answers for them.
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I thought this comment was going to be about the battle of sideboards element that got GGT banned. Then I read about Blood Moon and realized it's the typical Modern complaints we've seen and debunked for years. Moon is not a strong card. That's why few top decks use it. If it was the kind of insta-losing SB tech you allege, we would see it more. We would see Blue Moon played more as a deck, and we would see more Grishoalbrand (a deck that should check off all your boxes of what makes a powerful Modern deck). We don't see any of those things, however, because the "broken" Modern you allege exists is not the overall experience of the format. It might be your personal experience due to the deck you play, the area you play in, and/or the game decisions you make, but it's nothing Wizards will develop banlist policy based on. It hasn't been for 3 years now. Nothing about cards like Moon has changed in that time. Might Modern have issues? Yes, and those issues could be with Dredge (see stuff like MD RIP in UW Control) and Stirrings. But unless someone has an actual data-driven case about other issues to make, I haven't seen anything else worth discussing from a ban perspective.
T4 rule misinterpretations are a clear sign to me that the thread is going off the rails. Decks must be both top-tier AND consistently winning pre-T4 to violate this rule. No decks are currently doing this.
This kind of pithy comment is all too common in the Twitch chat and Reddit age. It sounds good and garners upvotes, but it doesn't remotely describe what literally happened this year. See BBE and JTMS being unbanned when Modern was good and Standard was bad just to improve Modern more. When you have a literal counterexample to your allegation in the last 12 months, it's clearly an allegation that needs reworking.
There are no top-tier 80/20 matchups in Modern. There haven't been for 3 years. I have debunked this outrageous claim numerous times. To reiterate, top players have the same MWP in Modern as in other formats. They also have the same MWP variance and MWP ceiling. Notably, they further have the same Modern MWP as they do in BOTH Legacy and Standard; the only outliers are player-specific (e.g. Reid Duke is better at Modern than Standard), but across the board, the averages and spread are identical. If Modern was packed with 80/20 matchups as you and hoards of Modern critics have alleged, this would not be the case.
I understand that people are dissatisfied with a "No changes" update, and I understand that people want more communication from Wizards. Those are reasonable desires; arguing for an SFM unban or better Wizards updates and transparency are great topics. A meaningful "battle of sideboards" discussion through the lens of GGT might be fine too. Or Stirrings analysis. But fuming about long-debunked Modern issues is not the way to go, even if it happens every time Wizards does a "No changes" update on a metagame that some people perceive issues with.
ive never been a fan of blood moon, but ive accepted its place in the format (meaning ive never advocated for its ban). i just think its disingenuous to paint it in a light that is anything other than a free win generator that props up a lot of deck that would otherwise be underpowered.
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