I give it 'till page 8 before we're back to rehashing past ban thread discussions.
Page 8 is far too high. I would say page 5 at the latest.
Obviously you don't got it. In fact, I don't think you got my original point at all. I consider it to be the best combo deck in modern, and also will T8 at least (if not multiple) majors before the year is out once it gains traction. The fact the deck has a very good game against burn (~8-10% of the meta) and also a very good matchup against Tron decks makes it a very strong competitor. Maybe you're mad you didn't jump on the bandwagon before the cards spiked or whatever I couldn't care less, I'm going to play the deck, have fun and watch it tear stuff up. You've made essentially no points so far in this convo ("Pretty sure there will be more Twin, BG/x or Affinity decks in those top 8s. Are those busted too for doing that?" What does that even mean?) so there's really no point in keeping this going. Cheers.
Why should I be mad because I didn't jump on the hype train of a Tier 2 deck? If you take a look at my decks it should be clear that money isn't a big factor either for me.
I consider the best combo deck to be Twin and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I still stand by Simian Spirit Guide ultimately needing a ban. It's essentially just here to speed up busted things. I know it kills one deck out right (Ad Nauseam) but to me, that doesn't outweigh it's need to be banned. It essentially operates as a "fixed"rite of flame. I get to rite of flame because at minimum a card like that would cost R giving a feint impression of R: add RR. However, it doesn't actually cost anything to use. Meaning it creates explosive plays. Sometimes it just powers out T1-2 bloodmoons which in and of itself isn't terrible, other times it creates powerful plays like in Grishoalbrand, those rare T1 amulet bloom senarios, as well as housing the possibility of breaking future cards to be printed. I'm sure i'm in a minority here with this opinion, but the cards only purpose is the break the T4 rule or to cast things essentially for free when you draw a billion cards. This, by the way, is not a knock against grishoal brand specifically. Meaning it's not a choice aimed at hurting that deck, but an opinion designed around the health of the format as a whole.
As for Unbans: Bloodbraid Elf - I just really don't feel like this card changes anything. People can bring up the "but Aryakin it's 10% of the meta" all they like, but as someone who mains jund at the moment it doesn't change much if anything in the jund deck. It's a different weapon in the arsenal, sure, but it causes shifts in the diagram not some massive exodus to the BG/x archtype. It is also constantly ignored that this offers a boon to aggressive zoo shells, or at the very least an option in that arsenal. In a format that is obsessed with linear non-interactive strategies it's hard for me to understand why something that is simply CA attached to a body get's such a bad rap, particularly when cards like snapcaster mage and Collected Company are above reproach. To me these cards are extremely comparable in their respective shells.
Sword of the Meek - Here is a card most people seem to agree is a "safe unban". Me, not so much, as it does two things to the meta that I, as a player, would dislike. It forces anyone trying to play on a "fair" axis to run BG/x for abrupt decay. Yes, I main jund at the moment, but that is not ultimately where I would like to find myself in the future of this format. Currently I run it because it allows me to play KoCommand, abrupt decay and blood moon in the same deck which is to say, it gives me the best "fair way" to fight "unfair decks". Hopefully this wont always be the case. Hopefully people will have other fair ways to attack the format, but if Sword of the Meek comes off the banned list, I don't see any creature based "fair strategy" being able to compete once the combo is assembled, and I don't see any control deck, which does not play the combo, able to compete without abrupt decay. Now, maybe I'm wrong on this point and maybe aggro decks like Zoo, fish, goblins, or hatebears, or non Gx or Ux control lists like MBC will be able to beat 1: gain 1 life add a 1/1 flyer to the board, but I've yet to see anyone make an argument in this thread to support that. Instead everyone focuses on things like "with twin, amulet and grishoal decks in the format this is perfectly fine". (which is an argument that doesn't work for bloodbraid elf mind you). I guess I'm still hopeful that the format will eventually even out between fair/unfair decks and in that possibility I don't see SoTM as healthy.
These are just my opinions though. I'm not upset about the update, but I am a little disappointed. As for the format being healthy and nothing needing to be changed, I think that's strongly opinion based. not that you can't have an opinion on the matter, but I find the massive amounts of non-interactive linear decks that require such specific hate to be a real problem for the format that only two things can help address, new printings and ban announcements so where some people think it's a healthy format others can find fault with it.
This has been said many times but I'll say it again, bloodbraid elf is uninteractive b/c the ability happens as long as its cast.
That's a really poor excuse though. It still uses the stack so in fact can be interacted with, and the 3/2 haste body it leaves behind is very lackluster. If snapcaster, coco,and cryptic are safe for the format then in a vacuum so is BBE. The issue is simply the prevalence of the most popular deck it slots into.
The fact that the card gives you a free spell by only casting the card is what makes this card too insane (you need two counterspells or counterflux). The card is also a 3/2 haste body plus a free spell that could be anything under the sun in a deck like jund. The difference is that snapcaster mage, coco and crytpic dont give value for merely casting the card.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
I give it 'till page 8 before we're back to rehashing past ban thread discussions.
Page 8 is far too high. I would say page 5 at the latest.
Obviously you don't got it. In fact, I don't think you got my original point at all. I consider it to be the best combo deck in modern, and also will T8 at least (if not multiple) majors before the year is out once it gains traction. The fact the deck has a very good game against burn (~8-10% of the meta) and also a very good matchup against Tron decks makes it a very strong competitor. Maybe you're mad you didn't jump on the bandwagon before the cards spiked or whatever I couldn't care less, I'm going to play the deck, have fun and watch it tear stuff up. You've made essentially no points so far in this convo ("Pretty sure there will be more Twin, BG/x or Affinity decks in those top 8s. Are those busted too for doing that?" What does that even mean?) so there's really no point in keeping this going. Cheers.
Galerion used common sense! It's super effective! Dizzy fainted!
But seriously if grishoalbrand would be way more represented if it actually was that consistently good. People don't not play over powered decks due to ban scares, and it's not like grishoalbrand is secret tech at this point. It's just not broken. Also not agreeing with your point /= not getting it.
Exactly.
If anything history has show that decks that are really good and above the rest have actual results and meta-game shares to show for them.
Jund is almost $2000 making it one of Moderns most expensive decks and yet it still was like 30% of the meta at some point and bans were certainly expected.
Same thing with Pod and Delver with meta-game shares that left everything else behind. Again bans were expected and did happen but that didn't stop people from playing those decks.
And I can continue to list all the other decks which dominated like Caw-Blade, Faeries, Affintiy, etc.
All of them had actual results and meta-game shares to show for them.
All I see when I look at Griselbrand and Amulet Bloom is 1.64% and 3.96% respectively. It's like people don't know anymore what really good and broken actually means.
Finally someone here with some common sense
I give it 'till page 8 before we're back to rehashing past ban thread discussions.
Page 8 is far too high. I would say page 5 at the latest.
Obviously you don't got it. In fact, I don't think you got my original point at all. I consider it to be the best combo deck in modern, and also will T8 at least (if not multiple) majors before the year is out once it gains traction. The fact the deck has a very good game against burn (~8-10% of the meta) and also a very good matchup against Tron decks makes it a very strong competitor. Maybe you're mad you didn't jump on the bandwagon before the cards spiked or whatever I couldn't care less, I'm going to play the deck, have fun and watch it tear stuff up. You've made essentially no points so far in this convo ("Pretty sure there will be more Twin, BG/x or Affinity decks in those top 8s. Are those busted too for doing that?" What does that even mean?) so there's really no point in keeping this going. Cheers.
Why should I be mad because I didn't jump on the hype train of a Tier 2 deck? If you take a look at my decks it should be clear that money isn't a big factor either for me.
I consider the best combo deck to be Twin and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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For a ban deck needs to put down high enough numbers, it's not just sheer power . As long as Grishoalbrand won't come close in numbers to the tier 1 status it won't receive a ban and it shouldn't.
I agree. That said, my friend put it together and has been playing it a couple weeks. Once you know that deck, it is very good. He does win before turn 4 quite often but this is typically against decks that don't know how to play against him.
He was playing a BW Tokens player last week. The player Thoughtseized my friend. My buddy had a bunch of crap and a Borborygmos Enraged and Goryo's Vengeance in hand. We all know the obvious pick here.
Well the BW Player took BoBo and lost the next turn. I think once people know how to play against this deck it won't be near as scary.
Well since this is getting nowhere as I said earlier I consider Grislshoalbrand to be the best combo deck in modern and the deck I will be grinding with. Guess we'll wait and see the results of rest of the majors this year.
I am not surprised at the no-bans. The only thing I thought should be banned, i know never will (Twin/Blood Moon) but my reasons are beyond their % of meta or win %.
I am slightly sad at the no unbans. I think there are a few safe unbans (SotM, AV, JtMS) but I am not overly surprised, WotC is definitely on the cautious side when it comes to unbans.
I like how the list of "safe" unbans ramps up pretty fast.
Like "Most people agree, eh it's a little debatable, completely unreasonsable..."
I don't play Bloom Titan, but I'm glad nothing got hit from it. There wasn't a compelling enough argument that it should be, and it seems that Wizards is semi-endorsing its existence, presuming it doesn't suddenly spike in the meta. But seeing as it didn't get unreasonable even after a PT win, I think it'll be fine.
After playing Shoal, 12post, Eggs, and Pod I learned my lesson. It only took 4 times but I finally learned it. Decks like Bloom Titan will one day see a ban, that's just the way the format is.
That's just a case of not reading the freaking cards. Taking a creature with a reanimation spell in hand is new player mistake territory.
That was my point. Many people at FNM/Card shops just don't know how to play against the deck. These are the people who will enter Day 1 at GP's and get owned by decks like this and Amulet Bloom, sending those combo decks to Day 2.
Well since this is getting nowhere as I said earlier I consider Grislshoalbrand to be the best combo deck in modern and the deck I will be grinding with. Guess we'll wait and see the results of rest of the majors this year.
I guess the deck is just ... "not that good" according to the people here. I just hope that they can say the same thing later on in September. For me, the deck has given me my highest win percentage since Standard UR Dragonstorm (yes, even higher than my Standard Uw Delver, Standard UB Faeries, and Standard UW CawBlade). I am certainly not too upset at getting top 4 every week among 44 fairly competitive FNM players and top 4ing both PPTQs (72 players and 86 players) that I attended. If this is getting lucky with a Tier 2 deck, then I wish I could have gotten more lucky with some of my other deck choices in the 12 years between UR Dragonstorm and Griselbrand.
The sad part to me is that I know I'm not mulliganing or playing the deck properly or my record would be closer to the 68-4 that Bob Huang reported in his article. Anyway I would rather the deck get no press than everybody realizing that this is a Tier 1 deck and it's not close.
*Besides saying that people don't know how to play against the deck is a cop-out unless because the player playing the deck probably doesn't play it the best either and the lists are far from optimized. Okay, nobody at your FNM knows how to play against the deck. Guess what? The 1 player at your FNM playing it doesn't play it too well either.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I also said I think the deck is very good. I personally think this deck is at least as good as Splinter Twin. Even if one knows how to play against it and you bring in hate (Grafdiggers for example) they can just Breach a threat anyway.
I think the combination of this deck being new and it being as good as it is will lead to very good results. Saying 'many players don't know how to play against the deck' isn't an excuse for the deck's good performance. It is just an observation. I do know how to play against the deck and I still lose to it plenty.
Sorry if I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that many people who have never played against the deck think that it is a flash in the pan. It certainly is not. I do in fact know that the deck is beatable. But at least the options (other than deck choice) that I have tested, it shows that they will hurt you in other matchups in the meta - the other 98% of decks that you face.
Affinity, Shoal Delver, Lantern Control, Ad Nauseam, and probably Infect (I haven't done this one yet) are rough matchups, but only Affinity is played with any frequency among these.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Sorry if I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that many people who have never played against the deck think that it is a flash in the pan. It certainly is not. I do in fact know that the deck is beatable. But at least the options (other than deck choice) that I have tested, it shows that they will hurt you in other matchups in the meta - the other 98% of decks that you face.
I play Junk typically (currently anyway), and I have to mulligan every hand that doesn't have Thoughtseize/IoK or an Ooze, and this is when I play my friend and I know what he is on.
If I go to a tournament and G1 I keep a hand with double Goyf, a Pulse, and a Decay (a very keepable hand against many decks, especially an unknown Game 1) I almost auto lose to this deck.
I absolutely agree with you about SotM. The problem I see with this card is that it would hit creature based strategies, especially aggro ones very hard. It's very hard to fight through 1/1 flying token and 1ife each turn for deck that try to kill you as fast as possible.
Want to know what's even harder for an aggro deck to fight through? Dying to infinite 1/4 tokens. Yet Twin is still around.
With some good ways (removal: namely Lightning Bolt, and creatures like Kitchen Finks) to fight those deck and some iconic aggro decks like Zoo and others not that well known creature based decks already not doing well I really think there's no reason to unban SotM and that it would actually be bad idea not bringing any good to the format.
The last three Grand Prix were all won by aggro decks.
BBE may be a totally safe card for modern, but I don't think you encourage growth and a diverse format by unbanning cards that pretty much only work in a very popular, very powerful deck. That's bad for the health of the format.
BBE may be a totally safe card for modern, but I don't think you encourage growth and a diverse format by unbanning cards that pretty much only work in a very popular, very powerful deck. That's bad for the health of the format.
Exactly, but the proponents of unbanning the card are going to look into the original reason that it was banned in the first place and the card's power level compared with current Modern legal cards. And they actually have a point in doing so. (to be clear, I absolutely do not want Bloodbraid Elf unbanned right now, nor do I think it should)
Actually if enough people make a claim for it to be unbanned, I could actually see it being unbanned along with Sword of the Meek at the next announcement, right before the Pro Tour. People like watching Jund on coverage and even I have to admit that watching Jund duke it out with some Controllish Sword of the Meek deck would be fun. I still would like to see Combo do well and I don't think either of those cards hurts Combo.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Sorry if I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that many people who have never played against the deck think that it is a flash in the pan. It certainly is not. I do in fact know that the deck is beatable. But at least the options (other than deck choice) that I have tested, it shows that they will hurt you in other matchups in the meta - the other 98% of decks that you face.
I play Junk typically (currently anyway), and I have to mulligan every hand that doesn't have Thoughtseize/IoK or an Ooze, and this is when I play my friend and I know what he is on.
If I go to a tournament and G1 I keep a hand with double Goyf, a Pulse, and a Decay (a very keepable hand against many decks, especially an unknown Game 1) I almost auto lose to this deck.
Well a) this is the reason matches are best of 3, so that decks like this dont just auto win every match up by being completely unpredictable and fighting on my very good axis. b) so what? There are a ton of extremely lop-sided match ups throughout every format (Burn vs Soul Sisters is a great example). We cant ban every deck that gives another deck a super unfavourable match up or there would be only BGx and Twin decks in the format (even Grixis control has a super unfavourable burn match up).
Sorry if I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that many people who have never played against the deck think that it is a flash in the pan. It certainly is not. I do in fact know that the deck is beatable. But at least the options (other than deck choice) that I have tested, it shows that they will hurt you in other matchups in the meta - the other 98% of decks that you face.
I play Junk typically (currently anyway), and I have to mulligan every hand that doesn't have Thoughtseize/IoK or an Ooze, and this is when I play my friend and I know what he is on.
If I go to a tournament and G1 I keep a hand with double Goyf, a Pulse, and a Decay (a very keepable hand against many decks, especially an unknown Game 1) I almost auto lose to this deck.
Well a) this is the reason matches are best of 3, so that decks like this dont just auto win every match up by being completely unpredictable and fighting on my very good axis. b) so what? There are a ton of extremely lop-sided match ups throughout every format (Burn vs Soul Sisters is a great example). We cant ban every deck that gives another deck a super unfavourable match up or there would be only BGx and Twin decks in the format (even Grixis control has a super unfavourable burn match up).
Its why sideboards exist.
Uh right I understand how Magic works and what Sideboards are. I swear in this thread people are looking for arguments where there are none.
I do not think anything in this deck should be banned.
I think it is a good deck.
I think it is hard to learn and tricky to play against for the first few times.
I was agreeing with FoodChainGoblins that it is a very good deck and not a 'flash in the pan'.
Sorry if I misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure that many people who have never played against the deck think that it is a flash in the pan. It certainly is not. I do in fact know that the deck is beatable. But at least the options (other than deck choice) that I have tested, it shows that they will hurt you in other matchups in the meta - the other 98% of decks that you face.
I play Junk typically (currently anyway), and I have to mulligan every hand that doesn't have Thoughtseize/IoK or an Ooze, and this is when I play my friend and I know what he is on.
If I go to a tournament and G1 I keep a hand with double Goyf, a Pulse, and a Decay (a very keepable hand against many decks, especially an unknown Game 1) I almost auto lose to this deck.
Well a) this is the reason matches are best of 3, so that decks like this dont just auto win every match up by being completely unpredictable and fighting on my very good axis. b) so what? There are a ton of extremely lop-sided match ups throughout every format (Burn vs Soul Sisters is a great example). We cant ban every deck that gives another deck a super unfavourable match up or there would be only BGx and Twin decks in the format (even Grixis control has a super unfavourable burn match up).
Its why sideboards exist.
Uh right I understand how Magic works and what Sideboards are. I swear in this thread people are looking for arguments where there are none.
I do not think anything in this deck should be banned.
I think it is a good deck.
I think it is hard to learn and tricky to play against for the first few times.
I was agreeing with FoodChainGoblins that it is a very good deck and not a 'flash in the pan'.
My apologizes then, the way i read it, you made it sound like it was somehow a negative that particular hands were good and others bad against particular decks. So sorry
Would have been cool if they could release reasoning like they do when they ban/unban something.
ie something like " after long discussion blah blah we decided not to ban X because of Y Z and W "
or " although there are some high profile cards some in the community wish to be banned (twin bloom etc) we decided that the format stilll has time to grow and react to the meta blah blah"
or " Literally we didn't think anything deserved a ban so we didn't discuss it "
or etc.
Would have been cool if they could release reasoning like they do when they ban/unban something.
ie something like " after long discussion blah blah we decided not to ban X because of Y Z and W "
or " although there are some high profile cards some in the community wish to be banned (twin bloom etc) we decided that the format stilll has time to grow and react to the meta blah blah"
or " Literally we didn't think anything deserved a ban so we didn't discuss it "
or etc.
The problem is that they don't want to create instability inside the format. If Wizards says "we considered banning Summer Bloom but didn't for reason X", well then the whole format is sort of going to accept the Amulet ban is on the way. Players are going to shy away from it, and the format won't naturally evolve. Then maybe amulet never gets banned because it never fulfills their criteria. If Wizards says something else like "we didn't discuss it" as you've suggested, players will feel outraged that they never considered Amulet, and that deck will unnaturally spike because Wizards doesn't think it's even worth discussing.
Saying nothing is the best because it lets us speculate and have the format evolve without any bias.
By not saying anything, they are saying a lot. They are saying "We believe the format, as it exists now, is healthy, stable and encourages what we want it to."
Would have been cool if they could release reasoning like they do when they ban/unban something.
ie something like " after long discussion blah blah we decided not to ban X because of Y Z and W "
or " although there are some high profile cards some in the community wish to be banned (twin bloom etc) we decided that the format stilll has time to grow and react to the meta blah blah"
or " Literally we didn't think anything deserved a ban so we didn't discuss it "
or etc.
The problem is that they don't want to create instability inside the format. If Wizards says "we considered banning Summer Bloom but didn't for reason X", well then the whole format is sort of going to accept the Amulet ban is on the way. Players are going to shy away from it, and the format won't naturally evolve. Then maybe amulet never gets banned because it never fulfills their criteria. If Wizards says something else like "we didn't discuss it" as you've suggested, players will feel outraged that they never considered Amulet, and that deck will unnaturally spike because Wizards doesn't think it's even worth discussing.
Saying nothing is the best because it lets us speculate and have the format evolve without any bias.
They don't have to specifically say they did or didn't discuss/consider it, just give an explanation for why they didn't despite a lot of people talking about it (which admittedly implies consideration/discussion, but doesn't outright state it).
If they were to at least give an explanation, it could help clear up some misconceptions about things and at least reduce the complaints about them "allowing" turn 2 kills. I really wish they'd more frequently give explanations for things like this... the only time I can remember them doing this is for UW Delver in Standard.
To be more honest, though, the more perturbing lack of a ban is the fact nothing got banned in Legacy; Dig Through Time is crazy warping the format.
This was what I expected but still upset that sword and vision is still on the banlist. I really dont see what either of those cards would do to the meta except somewhat help control which needs it so....
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
Would have been cool if they could release reasoning like they do when they ban/unban something.
ie something like " after long discussion blah blah we decided not to ban X because of Y Z and W "
or " although there are some high profile cards some in the community wish to be banned (twin bloom etc) we decided that the format stilll has time to grow and react to the meta blah blah"
or " Literally we didn't think anything deserved a ban so we didn't discuss it "
or etc.
The problem is that they don't want to create instability inside the format. If Wizards says "we considered banning Summer Bloom but didn't for reason X", well then the whole format is sort of going to accept the Amulet ban is on the way. Players are going to shy away from it, and the format won't naturally evolve. Then maybe amulet never gets banned because it never fulfills their criteria. If Wizards says something else like "we didn't discuss it" as you've suggested, players will feel outraged that they never considered Amulet, and that deck will unnaturally spike because Wizards doesn't think it's even worth discussing.
Saying nothing is the best because it lets us speculate and have the format evolve without any bias.
They don't have to specifically say they did or didn't discuss/consider it, just give an explanation for why they didn't despite a lot of people talking about it (which admittedly implies consideration/discussion, but doesn't outright state it).
If they were to at least give an explanation, it could help clear up some misconceptions about things and at least reduce the complaints about them "allowing" turn 2 kills. I really wish they'd more frequently give explanations for things like this... the only time I can remember them doing this is for UW Delver in Standard.
To be more honest, though, the more perturbing lack of a ban is the fact nothing got banned in Legacy; Dig Through Time is crazy warping the format.
Why is a further explanation necessary? There's already an implied one that they're not breaking the rules so their fine. The rules for the format are fairly clear IMO, and I know you have a good understanding of them. I don't feel wizards needs to explain ban list reasoning every announcement, especially when doing so could be potentially harmful.
Why should I be mad because I didn't jump on the hype train of a Tier 2 deck? If you take a look at my decks it should be clear that money isn't a big factor either for me.
I consider the best combo deck to be Twin and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
The fact that the card gives you a free spell by only casting the card is what makes this card too insane (you need two counterspells or counterflux). The card is also a 3/2 haste body plus a free spell that could be anything under the sun in a deck like jund. The difference is that snapcaster mage, coco and crytpic dont give value for merely casting the card.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Exactly.
If anything history has show that decks that are really good and above the rest have actual results and meta-game shares to show for them.
Jund is almost $2000 making it one of Moderns most expensive decks and yet it still was like 30% of the meta at some point and bans were certainly expected.
Same thing with Pod and Delver with meta-game shares that left everything else behind. Again bans were expected and did happen but that didn't stop people from playing those decks.
And I can continue to list all the other decks which dominated like Caw-Blade, Faeries, Affintiy, etc.
All of them had actual results and meta-game shares to show for them.
All I see when I look at Griselbrand and Amulet Bloom is 1.64% and 3.96% respectively. It's like people don't know anymore what really good and broken actually means.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
I agree. That said, my friend put it together and has been playing it a couple weeks. Once you know that deck, it is very good. He does win before turn 4 quite often but this is typically against decks that don't know how to play against him.
He was playing a BW Tokens player last week. The player Thoughtseized my friend. My buddy had a bunch of crap and a Borborygmos Enraged and Goryo's Vengeance in hand. We all know the obvious pick here.
Well the BW Player took BoBo and lost the next turn. I think once people know how to play against this deck it won't be near as scary.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
After playing Shoal, 12post, Eggs, and Pod I learned my lesson. It only took 4 times but I finally learned it. Decks like Bloom Titan will one day see a ban, that's just the way the format is.
That was my point. Many people at FNM/Card shops just don't know how to play against the deck. These are the people who will enter Day 1 at GP's and get owned by decks like this and Amulet Bloom, sending those combo decks to Day 2.
I guess the deck is just ... "not that good" according to the people here. I just hope that they can say the same thing later on in September. For me, the deck has given me my highest win percentage since Standard UR Dragonstorm (yes, even higher than my Standard Uw Delver, Standard UB Faeries, and Standard UW CawBlade). I am certainly not too upset at getting top 4 every week among 44 fairly competitive FNM players and top 4ing both PPTQs (72 players and 86 players) that I attended. If this is getting lucky with a Tier 2 deck, then I wish I could have gotten more lucky with some of my other deck choices in the 12 years between UR Dragonstorm and Griselbrand.
The sad part to me is that I know I'm not mulliganing or playing the deck properly or my record would be closer to the 68-4 that Bob Huang reported in his article. Anyway I would rather the deck get no press than everybody realizing that this is a Tier 1 deck and it's not close.
*Besides saying that people don't know how to play against the deck is a cop-out unless because the player playing the deck probably doesn't play it the best either and the lists are far from optimized. Okay, nobody at your FNM knows how to play against the deck. Guess what? The 1 player at your FNM playing it doesn't play it too well either.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I think the combination of this deck being new and it being as good as it is will lead to very good results. Saying 'many players don't know how to play against the deck' isn't an excuse for the deck's good performance. It is just an observation. I do know how to play against the deck and I still lose to it plenty.
Affinity, Shoal Delver, Lantern Control, Ad Nauseam, and probably Infect (I haven't done this one yet) are rough matchups, but only Affinity is played with any frequency among these.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I play Junk typically (currently anyway), and I have to mulligan every hand that doesn't have Thoughtseize/IoK or an Ooze, and this is when I play my friend and I know what he is on.
If I go to a tournament and G1 I keep a hand with double Goyf, a Pulse, and a Decay (a very keepable hand against many decks, especially an unknown Game 1) I almost auto lose to this deck.
The last three Grand Prix were all won by aggro decks.
Exactly, but the proponents of unbanning the card are going to look into the original reason that it was banned in the first place and the card's power level compared with current Modern legal cards. And they actually have a point in doing so. (to be clear, I absolutely do not want Bloodbraid Elf unbanned right now, nor do I think it should)
Actually if enough people make a claim for it to be unbanned, I could actually see it being unbanned along with Sword of the Meek at the next announcement, right before the Pro Tour. People like watching Jund on coverage and even I have to admit that watching Jund duke it out with some Controllish Sword of the Meek deck would be fun. I still would like to see Combo do well and I don't think either of those cards hurts Combo.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Well a) this is the reason matches are best of 3, so that decks like this dont just auto win every match up by being completely unpredictable and fighting on my very good axis. b) so what? There are a ton of extremely lop-sided match ups throughout every format (Burn vs Soul Sisters is a great example). We cant ban every deck that gives another deck a super unfavourable match up or there would be only BGx and Twin decks in the format (even Grixis control has a super unfavourable burn match up).
Its why sideboards exist.
Uh right I understand how Magic works and what Sideboards are. I swear in this thread people are looking for arguments where there are none.
I do not think anything in this deck should be banned.
I think it is a good deck.
I think it is hard to learn and tricky to play against for the first few times.
I was agreeing with FoodChainGoblins that it is a very good deck and not a 'flash in the pan'.
My apologizes then, the way i read it, you made it sound like it was somehow a negative that particular hands were good and others bad against particular decks. So sorry
ie something like " after long discussion blah blah we decided not to ban X because of Y Z and W "
or " although there are some high profile cards some in the community wish to be banned (twin bloom etc) we decided that the format stilll has time to grow and react to the meta blah blah"
or " Literally we didn't think anything deserved a ban so we didn't discuss it "
or etc.
The problem is that they don't want to create instability inside the format. If Wizards says "we considered banning Summer Bloom but didn't for reason X", well then the whole format is sort of going to accept the Amulet ban is on the way. Players are going to shy away from it, and the format won't naturally evolve. Then maybe amulet never gets banned because it never fulfills their criteria. If Wizards says something else like "we didn't discuss it" as you've suggested, players will feel outraged that they never considered Amulet, and that deck will unnaturally spike because Wizards doesn't think it's even worth discussing.
Saying nothing is the best because it lets us speculate and have the format evolve without any bias.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
If they were to at least give an explanation, it could help clear up some misconceptions about things and at least reduce the complaints about them "allowing" turn 2 kills. I really wish they'd more frequently give explanations for things like this... the only time I can remember them doing this is for UW Delver in Standard.
To be more honest, though, the more perturbing lack of a ban is the fact nothing got banned in Legacy; Dig Through Time is crazy warping the format.
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
RUGAnimar, Soul of Elements EDH
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH
Why is a further explanation necessary? There's already an implied one that they're not breaking the rules so their fine. The rules for the format are fairly clear IMO, and I know you have a good understanding of them. I don't feel wizards needs to explain ban list reasoning every announcement, especially when doing so could be potentially harmful.