Just want to play Devils advocate here, purely for the sake of discussion
People keep saying all twin did was cover up moderns issues, but is that not what force does in legacy? Are U decks in legacy not forced to run force? Would we not see a similar result in legacy if force was banned as we see in modern through the twin ban? Was twin a band aid, or was it the force of will the format needed? What makes force ok in legacy to keep the format together but twin too much?
I consider this an error.
Twin (in the UBR and UWR forms, the UR one was more a tempo deck) was a control deck with a 6-cards finisher. You can see how it lacked the usual feature of this kind of combo decks: tutors, ramp and rites spells, low interaction...
I agree. UR was a tempo deck, RUG was midrange, and URW/URB was a control deck. But the Oops I win part of it DID stiffle control decks on a whole. I will defend that ban. There was no reason to try any other control deck because twin was the better deck no matter what.
The format is better since its gone. More control decks will see play,,, when more cards are printed/unbanned. Look, some people didnt like twin but liked esper or the like. Those decks need power and that just wont happen with twin in the format, because twin will be just as good with it and invalidate it again.
I'm having a hard time following this logic. If Twin stifled control decks, why are control decks struggling so much nearly a year after the ban? Every blue based control deck is worse off now than it was before the ban. Twin took care of a lot of the linear degeneracy, which helped control decks narrow their answer suite. And Twin itself was always a positive matchup for control decks and other highly interactive decks. Since the ban, the shift has been extremely clear away from interaction and toward linear/speed,and one of the biggest casualties has been blue-based interactive amd control decks. (which is the OPPOSITE effect that the ban was supposed to produce)
Just want to play Devils advocate here, purely for the sake of discussion
People keep saying all twin did was cover up moderns issues, but is that not what force does in legacy? Are U decks in legacy not forced to run force? Would we not see a similar result in legacy if force was banned as we see in modern through the twin ban? Was twin a band aid, or was it the force of will the format needed? What makes force ok in legacy to keep the format together but twin too much?
Lands, Eldrazi and Dnt don't play force and are tier 1 in Legacy...
Also many combo decks run force for protection, so it's not like force is "policing" them to play fair.
None of those are U decks so they kinda can't run force, but i take it you disagree that U decks are forced to run force in legacy much as decks were forced to run twin? Once again, this is purely for discussion
Just want to play Devils advocate here, purely for the sake of discussion
People keep saying all twin did was cover up moderns issues, but is that not what force does in legacy? Are U decks in legacy not forced to run force? Would we not see a similar result in legacy if force was banned as we see in modern through the twin ban? Was twin a band aid, or was it the force of will the format needed? What makes force ok in legacy to keep the format together but twin too much?
I see the difference being in that Force slots into so many decks where Twin is one deck tasked with policing. We'd be happy to have a 'force-like' card here that allowed multiple decks to help police, but when you consolidate all of that policing into one deck you end up with the twin problems.
Frankly modern just needs more catch-all answers like Vindicate.
I was on board with vindicate for a long time but I just don't think it would help too much.
What actually needs to happen is better curation of the banlist and a more literal interpretation of the 'Turn 4' rule by wizards. Vindicate and other answers help in various positions, but when there are 10 different angles you can be attack from in any given game then the answers your deck is loaded with may or may not help you.
Unmaking actually gives me an Idea. Could a counterspell at 2 mana, which bolts yourself, help control? It makes it aweful vs aggro, but 3 damage vs losing the game to combo seems perfectly fine.
Control IS suppose to lose to aggro. But we all seem to agree counters at 3 mana dont work.
I'm having a hard time following this logic. If Twin stifled control decks, why are control decks struggling so much nearly a year after the ban? Every blue based control deck is worse off now than it was before the ban.
Twin took care of a lot of the linear degeneracy,
which helped control decks narrow their answer suite. And Twin itself was always a positive matchup for control decks and other highly interactive decks. Since the ban, the shift has been extremely clear away from interaction and toward linear/speed,and one of the biggest casualties has been blue-based interactive amd control decks. (which is the OPPOSITE effect that the ban was supposed to produce)
The format is now faster with the new cards that entered from Standard.
Swiftspear, Atarka's Command, Become Immense, Temur battle rage, Blossoming defense... Control is supposed to lose to such aggression.
Twin + untapper/blinker is a combo deck, not a fair control strategy.
If you wanna play control in Modern, ask WOTC to slow the format.
I second mlad_jiraf here
It's not the "control" part of the deck that allowed Twin to win vs linear degeneracy, it was the Combo-Kill that allowed that
Control is supposed to lose to fast aggro, and combo is supposed to outrace non-interactive aggro.
Whatever Burn, Infect or suicide zoo are trying to do, T3 Exarch into T4 Splinter Twin will always do it better because it has access to removal (bolt) and cantrips (serum visions) turn 1 , Remand turn 2 and combo kill turn 3.5
Twin took care of this because it was a degenerate combo not a control deck.
The key difference though is that Twin did this without actually suppressing any of those decks. The ones strong enough to be signature, mainstay, consistent Tier 1 decks (like Burn and Affinity) still did just fine. In fact if you combine Burn and Affinity, those actually got more GP Top 8s last year than Twin, so Twin was definitely beatable and fast aggro was definitely viable.
So that means it was able to deal with those decks SOME times but not ALL times, which is perfect for a policing deck. If it won "all" the time (like Eldrazi), then it would be oppressive. Twin was never oppressive.
I think that more versatile answers isn't the issue, it's much simpler in that modern has become way too fast; Counterspell is not that much of an upgrade to mana leak versus affinity, infect, burn, merfolk, dredge or zooicide. And I wouldn't even want to play Vindicate against any of those decks. Counterspell or Vindicate would help further up on the manacurve against jund, endrazi or tron but those decks really aren't the issue
When playing Jeskai Harbinger, it always baffles me that with a deck filled to the brim with cheap interaction, these fast aggro decks are still relatively 50-50. More than half of the current Tier 1 listed decks are "you need to kill the small guys" matchups, so it is very easy to spec against beating all those strategies, but even then you only barely come out on top. I think that especially Infect, with the printing of Blossoming Defense, is really starting to push what should be allowed in Modern, and I would not be surprised by a Glistener Elf ban.
Compared to the available interaction, one-drop creatures are just WAY too good in Modern. I've seen suggestions for Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood in Modern, and those I can kind of agree on.
Unmaking actually gives me an Idea. Could a counterspell at 2 mana, which bolts yourself, help control? It makes it aweful vs aggro, but 3 damage vs losing the game to combo seems perfectly fine.
Control IS suppose to lose to aggro. But we all seem to agree counters at 3 mana dont work.
I could definitely see this but I bet it would go the way of unmaking and see virtually no play (I actually do run an unmaking in my BW control SB). I don't think it would do much to help control, as you said it would be terrible against aggro which is a big part of the meta and we already have negate as a 2 mana counter if you really want to stop combo. I don't even think a straight counterspell reprint would help.
Historically... control DOES lose to aggro. Its part of the cycle. I dont care if you pack 4 helix, 4 bolt, 4 path, 4 snap. Thats 12. If im a zoo or burn player, I csn pack 20 creatures. Youll run out, I wont.
Thats ok. Control should beat combo, not aggro. The down side to our current meta is it has a ton of combo aggro and midrange and maybe ramp.
The lack of tempo and control made combo get banned to fair and all thats left is aggro and midrange qhich means controls natural pray is scarce, so no reason to play it, and it gets killed by aggro, which is everywhere.
Powering control and letting combo exist seems like a good plan to me
and if you think ponder is too strong then fine; make anticipate a one drop and make it a sorcery or something. i need more than 4 serum visions in a deck
As a player who personally enjoys playing with and against control decks, I find it humorous in every thread there is never a consensus on what control decks actually need to survive in this format. It always a debate between selection, answers, and finishers (though finally people are dropping the last portion). Frankly, I think modern's card selection is fine. The only thing I could see control decks getting is Opt perhaps.
What I've seen suggested often, and would personally like to see is:
Spell DecayUU (UW or UB would be just as fine)
Instant
Counter target spell if its converted mana cost is 3 or less.
A reasonable counterspell that still misses certain cards like delve spells, but allows control decks to hit most combo decks efficiently. It would also promote higher CMC cards, and I think would be fine in standard (especially a multicolored version).
This doesn't address my thoughts on how White is definitely the weakest color in Modern however.
Modern does seem to be trending toward linear aggro/combo decks, like infect or dredge. I suspect this is less because of the weakness of Control, than it is the rate of return on invested time. Simply put, despite being roughly as powerful, aggro requires less of the player and the deck builder than most control lists. You can get similar results for half of the time invested. A great deal of this rests on how "diverse" the meta is, how specific (not how weak) the answers are, and how poor the the card selection is.
First of all, the meta is diverse, in the sense that there are a lot of different decks that require very narrow answers to have consistent success against, despite basically doing the same thing- Affinity, Infect, Tron, Dredge are probably the most consistent offenders in most people's minds, but Scapeshift variants, 8-rack, 8-whack goblins, Lantern Prison Control, Ad Nauseam, Grishoalbrand, and Death's Shadow Zoo (among many others)have many of the same traits. Those 15 sideboard slots feel very tight to most players. However, that's probably due to the prevailing philosophy being one of using only silver bullets. I think looking more to cards like Ceremonious Rejection and Surgical Extraction rather than Rest in Peace or Summary Dismissal will net you more points in more matchups than running a 1 of silver bullet in the sideboard. I don't think banning anything or unbanning anything will improve the meta. Punishing Fire would end a lot of the linear aggro, but it would end most fair decks as well, while protecting Tron and Scapeshift.
Second, our general answers are weaker than the available threats. I see this argument a lot, and I'm inclined to agree. A great deal of this is I suspect because of how much of a non-bo many of our answers are with each other;Mana Leak and Path being the most egregious example. It can make building a control list very, very frustrating. The notable exception is Abrupt Decay, which can only really be run in BGx lists. This could be fixed by some reprints, like Innocent Blood, Stifle, or new cards like a quasi Cabal Therapy (with a different flashback cost, obviously) or a FoW equivalent like: 3WWInstant
Counter target non-white spell. If a spell is countered in this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of in their graveyard.
Interrupt: If you control 3 or less lands, instead of paying ~'s mana cost, you may reveal your hand. If you do, your opponent chooses up to one nonland card and exiles it.
Third, our card selection is garbage. I would say this is what's really sinking control, more than anything else. We've actually got decent ways of getting card advantage, but we have no means of improving the odds that they're useful cards- and the reason for this is that combo apparently uses card filtration better than control. This is compounded by the previous problem with our narrow answers. I'm not saying that unbanning Dig through Time is a good idea, but Preordain is just not ban worthy.
Most of these issues simply aren't going to be wiped away with the ban list; they are fundamental to the entire card pool. I've had four decks banned out from under me now (Pod, Twin, Bloom Titan, and Storm)and from my perspective, the format has actually gone downhill a little ever since OGW. I'd say that we just need wait a few years and hope for the best, really. We just need more good, general answers and better card selection, really.
Just want to play Devils advocate here, purely for the sake of discussion
People keep saying all twin did was cover up moderns issues, but is that not what force does in legacy? Are U decks in legacy not forced to run force? Would we not see a similar result in legacy if force was banned as we see in modern through the twin ban? Was twin a band aid, or was it the force of will the format needed? What makes force ok in legacy to keep the format together but twin too much?
No, they're different. Force is a broad, format-wide answer. Twin's existence hid the general lack of answers by having a deck/interaction that required every deck to either be faster than it or pack answers to it at the expense of broader answers to the rest of the format.
Thoughtseize in Modern can be compaired to Force in Legacy in how they each impact/interact with the format, but comparing Force to the Twin deck is like comparing apples and giraffes.
We also don't really have a good tempo deck in the format at this point. People talk about miracles in legacy, but have you tried playing a combo deck against a delver variant? It's a nightmare for them. Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze. Delver just does't work without free counterspells. `
We also don't have any U based midrange decks either, as GB has all of the good value cards, and countermagic is so mediocre in modern.
Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze.
In modern, it really seems like WOTC is using the banlist so they can avoid having to print good countermagic,as countermagic makes new players angry.
I think that unbanning Ponder/Preordain would be good. Give people a reason to play U midrange, and W gets a lot better, as thalia is no longer useless weight a lot of the time. Or, print a pushed creature for white at the same power level of Goyf/Snap. Or print baleful strix.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
We also don't really have a good tempo deck in the format at this point. People talk about miracles in legacy, but have you tried playing a combo deck against a delver variant? It's a nightmare for them. Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze. Delver just does't work without free counterspells. `
We also don't have any U based midrange decks either, as GB has all of the good value cards, and countermagic is so mediocre in modern.
Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze.
In modern, it really seems like WOTC is using the banlist so they can avoid having to print good countermagic,as countermagic makes new players angry.
I think that unbanning Ponder/Preordain would be good. Give people a reason to play U midrange, and W gets a lot better, as thalia is no longer useless weight a lot of the time. Or, print a pushed creature for white at the same power level of Goyf/Snap. Or print baleful strix.
I want Baleful Strix in Modern quite badly. I play Shardless and Strix is such a great way to slow games down. Would love to slot that into Grixis Delver.
We also don't really have a good tempo deck in the format at this point. People talk about miracles in legacy, but have you tried playing a combo deck against a delver variant? It's a nightmare for them. Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze. Delver just does't work without free counterspells. `
We also don't have any U based midrange decks either, as GB has all of the good value cards, and countermagic is so mediocre in modern.
Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze.
In modern, it really seems like WOTC is using the banlist so they can avoid having to print good countermagic,as countermagic makes new players angry.
I think that unbanning Ponder/Preordain would be good. Give people a reason to play U midrange, and W gets a lot better, as thalia is no longer useless weight a lot of the time. Or, print a pushed creature for white at the same power level of Goyf/Snap. Or print baleful strix.
I want Baleful Strix in Modern quite badly. I play Shardless and Strix is such a great way to slow games down. Would love to slot that into Grixis Delver.
Same, and I think it's probably on-theme in any of the next 3 sets (Aether Revolt because artifact creature, either Egypt one because Owl).
Yet the meta was not as diverse when Twin was around, Twin was suppressing decks not by oppressing them but by narrowing the choice : If you want to win you either play twin or a deck that beats twin.
This is not true. Affinity had a bad Twin MU, but it was the second most played deck. Also RG tron was almost always Tier 1 in that period.
RG Tron also wasn't nearly as bad against Twin as people said it was. Their sideboard was essentially 50/50 cards that defeat aggro and cards that wreck Twin. Sometimes they would board the full 4 Rending Volley and 4 Nature's Claim, which made Twin's job a lot harder.
If control players could play more than just Lantern as a prison strategy, would that make them happy?
I've been playing around Magus of the Tabernacle strategies, and if anyone has a good idea of how to get around my Trinisphere/Goblin Dark Dwellers non-bo I'd be ecstatic.
If control players could play more than just Lantern as a prison strategy, would that make them happy?
I've been playing around Magus of the Tabernacle strategies, and if anyone has a good idea of how to get around my Trinisphere/Goblin Dark Dwellers non-bo I'd be ecstatic.
I doubt it. I think draw-go control is what people what instead of just locking someone out of the game.
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Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
And I dont want it to be legacy where you basically have to run brainstorm to find said answer cards.
Junk
Modern design is having a big impact on Legacy. Brainstorm usage is at the lowest point on the format that it's been in 8 years, under 50% of decks. It's SDT usage that's on the increase to compensate. Personally I play a Junk deck in Legacy in Nic Fit (which is tier 2) and my draw suite is so strong, I can easily out draw and out search the blue decks. Blue is still important in that format because of the role FoW plays, but the cantrip package has been falling out of favor.
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People keep saying all twin did was cover up moderns issues, but is that not what force does in legacy? Are U decks in legacy not forced to run force? Would we not see a similar result in legacy if force was banned as we see in modern through the twin ban? Was twin a band aid, or was it the force of will the format needed? What makes force ok in legacy to keep the format together but twin too much?
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
I'm having a hard time following this logic. If Twin stifled control decks, why are control decks struggling so much nearly a year after the ban? Every blue based control deck is worse off now than it was before the ban. Twin took care of a lot of the linear degeneracy, which helped control decks narrow their answer suite. And Twin itself was always a positive matchup for control decks and other highly interactive decks. Since the ban, the shift has been extremely clear away from interaction and toward linear/speed,and one of the biggest casualties has been blue-based interactive amd control decks. (which is the OPPOSITE effect that the ban was supposed to produce)
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
None of those are U decks so they kinda can't run force, but i take it you disagree that U decks are forced to run force in legacy much as decks were forced to run twin? Once again, this is purely for discussion
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
I see the difference being in that Force slots into so many decks where Twin is one deck tasked with policing. We'd be happy to have a 'force-like' card here that allowed multiple decks to help police, but when you consolidate all of that policing into one deck you end up with the twin problems.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
I was on board with vindicate for a long time but I just don't think it would help too much.
What actually needs to happen is better curation of the banlist and a more literal interpretation of the 'Turn 4' rule by wizards. Vindicate and other answers help in various positions, but when there are 10 different angles you can be attack from in any given game then the answers your deck is loaded with may or may not help you.
Control IS suppose to lose to aggro. But we all seem to agree counters at 3 mana dont work.
The key difference though is that Twin did this without actually suppressing any of those decks. The ones strong enough to be signature, mainstay, consistent Tier 1 decks (like Burn and Affinity) still did just fine. In fact if you combine Burn and Affinity, those actually got more GP Top 8s last year than Twin, so Twin was definitely beatable and fast aggro was definitely viable.
So that means it was able to deal with those decks SOME times but not ALL times, which is perfect for a policing deck. If it won "all" the time (like Eldrazi), then it would be oppressive. Twin was never oppressive.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
When playing Jeskai Harbinger, it always baffles me that with a deck filled to the brim with cheap interaction, these fast aggro decks are still relatively 50-50. More than half of the current Tier 1 listed decks are "you need to kill the small guys" matchups, so it is very easy to spec against beating all those strategies, but even then you only barely come out on top. I think that especially Infect, with the printing of Blossoming Defense, is really starting to push what should be allowed in Modern, and I would not be surprised by a Glistener Elf ban.
Compared to the available interaction, one-drop creatures are just WAY too good in Modern. I've seen suggestions for Swords to Plowshares or Innocent Blood in Modern, and those I can kind of agree on.
I could definitely see this but I bet it would go the way of unmaking and see virtually no play (I actually do run an unmaking in my BW control SB). I don't think it would do much to help control, as you said it would be terrible against aggro which is a big part of the meta and we already have negate as a 2 mana counter if you really want to stop combo. I don't even think a straight counterspell reprint would help.
Thats ok. Control should beat combo, not aggro. The down side to our current meta is it has a ton of combo aggro and midrange and maybe ramp.
The lack of tempo and control made combo get banned to fair and all thats left is aggro and midrange qhich means controls natural pray is scarce, so no reason to play it, and it gets killed by aggro, which is everywhere.
Powering control and letting combo exist seems like a good plan to me
What I've seen suggested often, and would personally like to see is:
Spell Decay UU (UW or UB would be just as fine)
Instant
Counter target spell if its converted mana cost is 3 or less.
A reasonable counterspell that still misses certain cards like delve spells, but allows control decks to hit most combo decks efficiently. It would also promote higher CMC cards, and I think would be fine in standard (especially a multicolored version).
This doesn't address my thoughts on how White is definitely the weakest color in Modern however.
Modern does seem to be trending toward linear aggro/combo decks, like infect or dredge. I suspect this is less because of the weakness of Control, than it is the rate of return on invested time. Simply put, despite being roughly as powerful, aggro requires less of the player and the deck builder than most control lists. You can get similar results for half of the time invested. A great deal of this rests on how "diverse" the meta is, how specific (not how weak) the answers are, and how poor the the card selection is.
First of all, the meta is diverse, in the sense that there are a lot of different decks that require very narrow answers to have consistent success against, despite basically doing the same thing- Affinity, Infect, Tron, Dredge are probably the most consistent offenders in most people's minds, but Scapeshift variants, 8-rack, 8-whack goblins, Lantern Prison Control, Ad Nauseam, Grishoalbrand, and Death's Shadow Zoo (among many others)have many of the same traits. Those 15 sideboard slots feel very tight to most players. However, that's probably due to the prevailing philosophy being one of using only silver bullets. I think looking more to cards like Ceremonious Rejection and Surgical Extraction rather than Rest in Peace or Summary Dismissal will net you more points in more matchups than running a 1 of silver bullet in the sideboard. I don't think banning anything or unbanning anything will improve the meta. Punishing Fire would end a lot of the linear aggro, but it would end most fair decks as well, while protecting Tron and Scapeshift.
Second, our general answers are weaker than the available threats. I see this argument a lot, and I'm inclined to agree. A great deal of this is I suspect because of how much of a non-bo many of our answers are with each other;Mana Leak and Path being the most egregious example. It can make building a control list very, very frustrating. The notable exception is Abrupt Decay, which can only really be run in BGx lists. This could be fixed by some reprints, like Innocent Blood, Stifle, or new cards like a quasi Cabal Therapy (with a different flashback cost, obviously) or a FoW equivalent like:
3WW Instant
Counter target non-white spell. If a spell is countered in this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of in their graveyard.
Interrupt: If you control 3 or less lands, instead of paying ~'s mana cost, you may reveal your hand. If you do, your opponent chooses up to one nonland card and exiles it.
Third, our card selection is garbage. I would say this is what's really sinking control, more than anything else. We've actually got decent ways of getting card advantage, but we have no means of improving the odds that they're useful cards- and the reason for this is that combo apparently uses card filtration better than control. This is compounded by the previous problem with our narrow answers. I'm not saying that unbanning Dig through Time is a good idea, but Preordain is just not ban worthy.
Most of these issues simply aren't going to be wiped away with the ban list; they are fundamental to the entire card pool. I've had four decks banned out from under me now (Pod, Twin, Bloom Titan, and Storm)and from my perspective, the format has actually gone downhill a little ever since OGW. I'd say that we just need wait a few years and hope for the best, really. We just need more good, general answers and better card selection, really.
Thoughtseize in Modern can be compaired to Force in Legacy in how they each impact/interact with the format, but comparing Force to the Twin deck is like comparing apples and giraffes.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
We also don't have any U based midrange decks either, as GB has all of the good value cards, and countermagic is so mediocre in modern.
Delver tends to lose to fair decks as they hemmorage cards to force and daze.
In modern, it really seems like WOTC is using the banlist so they can avoid having to print good countermagic,as countermagic makes new players angry.
I think that unbanning Ponder/Preordain would be good. Give people a reason to play U midrange, and W gets a lot better, as thalia is no longer useless weight a lot of the time. Or, print a pushed creature for white at the same power level of Goyf/Snap. Or print baleful strix.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
I want Baleful Strix in Modern quite badly. I play Shardless and Strix is such a great way to slow games down. Would love to slot that into Grixis Delver.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
RG Tron also wasn't nearly as bad against Twin as people said it was. Their sideboard was essentially 50/50 cards that defeat aggro and cards that wreck Twin. Sometimes they would board the full 4 Rending Volley and 4 Nature's Claim, which made Twin's job a lot harder.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
I've been playing around Magus of the Tabernacle strategies, and if anyone has a good idea of how to get around my Trinisphere/Goblin Dark Dwellers non-bo I'd be ecstatic.
I doubt it. I think draw-go control is what people what instead of just locking someone out of the game.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Junk
Modern design is having a big impact on Legacy. Brainstorm usage is at the lowest point on the format that it's been in 8 years, under 50% of decks. It's SDT usage that's on the increase to compensate. Personally I play a Junk deck in Legacy in Nic Fit (which is tier 2) and my draw suite is so strong, I can easily out draw and out search the blue decks. Blue is still important in that format because of the role FoW plays, but the cantrip package has been falling out of favor.