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What cards do you think should be banned or unbanned in Modern in the next announcement? (4/4/16 update)
Poll: What cards do you think should be BANNED?
Ended Apr 2, 2016
Poll: What cards do you think should be UNBANNED?
Ended Apr 2, 2016
I gave a ton of disclaimers to try and avert this exact response. The point is not to print that specific card that I designed in 15 aeconds. It is to argue that R&D can work to design a card that fixes Modern issues while not breaking Standard. There is no way this is as impossible as people keep claiming. The entire R&D crew has at least a few people talented and interested enough to do this without spending an inordinate amount of time.
Unban AV, BBE, Jace, Stoneforge, SotM, twin
Pleased to see that other than Jace my thoughts are pretty much in line with the majority of modern players.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
If the flashback was specifically 3 non-token creatures I'd say it isn't as bad, but given it can be tokens...
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Kologhans command is an excellent example of this. Did practically nothing in standard, value all star in modern.
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
This would create a banned list with cards like Freed From the Real, Teysa, Orzhov Scion, Ceaseless Searblades, Zombie Infestation, and Volcano Hellion.
Here's my personal preference:
Bans:
Eye of Ugin - <insert the obvious here>
MAYBE Ensnaring Bridge - It's just a ***** to deal with. Stony Silence doesn't shut it down, and it lets Lantern Control do whatever it pleases. Personally not a fan, but could live with it not being banned.
Unbans:
Stoneforge Mystic - Without Umezawa's Jitte or Skullclamp, she's still weak. They're giving her out at the GPs this year, so why not let her test the waters for a season?
Second Sunrise - Nobody plays Sunny Side Up anymore; the card is a threat, but the deck dies to countermagic and artifact hate. *COUGH* STONY SILENCE IN EVERY WHITE DECK *COUGH*
Built:
URGAnimar Combo (Duel EDH)URG
UBRThraximundar Control (Duel EDH)UBR
Building:
WGBogles (Modern)WG
BROlivia, Mobilized for Shenanigans (Duel EDH)BR
RGRadha Land Destruction (Duel EDH)RG
Fact is, the deck has been morphing to get slower on purpose. With the colourless versions people are incorporating the tron lands and going big. It's not as quick but it's more fun, and has a good late game.
The one card that really holds everything together in the deck is eye of ugin. I dont think there'd be a deck without it. Just temple by itself isn't good enough.
I'd rather ban temple (makes be sad but hey) and still have the shell of a deck left over than ban eye and have basically nothing.
I know some people are on the "just kill it dead" line, but as a community we shouldn't want it to disappear altogether, and I think Aaron forsythe agrees with this. There needs to be a less powerful but playable shell, for people to brew with.
Of course. Because it is the more powerful of the two.
How much "less powerful but playable" is acceptable? Because right now "less powerful" could mean anything from a solid tier 1 deck to a niche tier 2 strategy.
Having some tier 1 Gx Eldrazi Tron derivative with functionally the best cantrip/search spell in the format (Ancient Stirrings) along with more powerful midgame threats and inevitability that trumps control leaves people in the same spot as we are now. Playing something that goes under (Affinity, burn, infect), or attacks on a different axis entirely (Lantern, Living End).
While I agree that having more competitive decks in the format is better than having less; wotc's track record indicates they will ban without prejudice and wash their hands clean of this debacle. I mean look at how they handled Treasure Cruise. Treasure Cruise was the linchpin in decks that were starting to dominate (Delver, Ascendancy, etc), and they banned Dig Through Time on the off-chance that it would be a viable (albeit less powerful) replacement.
So while AF's sentiments might be in the right place I wouldn't count on that level of forethought on wotc's part. "Just kill it dead" and move on has been their modus operandi for some time now.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I don't think SFM *should* be unbanned, but if it ever does, I'd be more than happy to play her in my Bant Company deck.
Seeing as Aaron forsythe has officially gone on record as saying he wants the deck to stick around, I'd suggest they are giving it a lot of forethought.
I don't know which card is better for the deck; eye or temple, but together they are too much. The correct action would be to get rid if the worst one and let the deck keep the more linchpin one. That way you remove the critical mass of both, power the deck down but still actually have a deck left over. Problem solved.
If living end wants to play a 4 mana bad/do nothing/practically useless card in their direct combo deck, there is only one word to describe it; bye.
There's no certainty, let's be clear. Temple could go, eye could go. Both is unlikely, but unfortunately possible. Mimic could even hit the bin, with or without one of the lands.
Spouting "certainty" like your opinion is fact won't get you anywhere though.
I said certainly, not certainty. I agree there is not certainty. When I used the word certainly in the sentence immediately following one I started with "I hope", I thought the clear implication was I had moved on to my opinion. Sorry I confused you.
WotC claimed the ban reason for twin was that it suppressed other UR shells from existing. I first want to see whether such a deck will actually rise, then do some unbans next cycle depending on what kind of not-utterly-distorted-by-eldrazi-metagame forms. On top of that, there appear to be some cards in SOI that might just spawn entire new archetypes, but that's a discussion for another thread.
SoI just brought in an enchantment that basically makes eldrazi viable thanks to scions. Cryptolith Rite. With that I'm much less inclined to worry about an eye ban, as with a bit of shifting around you basically can still go big fairly quickly.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
Ewww lol. A 2 mana do-nothing isn't where eldrazi wants to be.
None of the creatures you want to be playing produce scions at a low cost. In fact, none of the best creatures produce scions at all :S
Certainly doesn't replace any of what eye does. Doesn't tutor, doesn't allow the occasional explosive draw. It's counterable and wastes your second turn.
I'm just having Deja Vu with Eldrazi players again as this entire situation is mirroring affinity in Mirrodin Standard. The deck is going to need reworking post ban no matter how someone looks at it because Eye of Ugin is almost guaranteed to be banned at this point. Wizards objective is to weaken it and not kill it, so forcing eldrazi to move to a specific color, become less threat dense, and thereby be forced to have to spend more effort to get creatures out, is basically what the entire intention is.
I'm an eldrazi player, too, btw, and yes that card has potential. It's not as good as eye of ugin, but I'd rather a wrench be thrown in to make the deck actually fun to build around than have Eye stay. Fast mana lands just make the deck absolutely boring no matter how many different builds someone does. Zero actual card interaction in the deck outside of possibly processors. It's like playing Portal...
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Splashing a colour for something like Ancient Stirrings is where I want to be, or bringing in bolt/aggressive options. Or tron lands and expedition maps.
The enchantment you mention doesn't help the deck do anything it wants to do, unfortunately. The creatures have to either have haste or have survived for a turn before you use the ability, which puts you down a card (from the enchantment), an entire turn (from casting the enchantment) and an entire second turn once your creatures are no longer summoning sick, tapping down your board in order to play something. The knock-on effect of tapping down your 4/4s and 5/5s on what should be a fairly aggressive deck (for one measly mana each) will also affect your ability to block and trade well in combat.
Scions make it marginally better but honestly when you get to the stage where that's a legit consideration, you've warped the deck too far into janky territory by substituting individually powerful cards for synergistic do-nothings in an attempt to get cute about ramping.
Other decks, I can maybe see it cropping up. It has potential but the needs-haste thing might be too much of a road block.
And yeah, the Eldrazi deck will need changing around and streamlining some more if temple or Eye gets banned. This isn't the way to do it though, in the modern format.
In standard nobody would question it, of course. Brew away!
Oh, and #FreeBBE
Because it needs to be let out
saying that there's no reason is just totally ignoring the point.... it's currently pretty popular... it's arguably the most popular archetype in modern's history... BBE was already banned because of the deck that has 90% of the same cards.... and this is after a year in which jund was the 3rd most successful archetype... that's not good enough for you guys?
and because jund isn't the most popular deck jund players want to unban it because it MIGHT be harmless?
i'm willing to hear arguments on what exactly the upside of a BBE unban would look like... because the only possible one i can think of is more players playing jund.... and that's not exactly something the format is screaming for....