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.
Historically it's true but not currently in modern.
Jeskai Nahiri absolutely feasts on Affinity, Burn, Infect, Zoo, etc. Those are the good match-ups and the reason to play the deck. Give me those aggro match-ups all day! What I don't want to see is Tron, Eldrazi, Scapeshift, and sometimes Dredge.
I think there are a whole bunch of things that need to happen (some of them together to balance against each-other) to fix the format, a mixture of bans, cards reprinted to enter modern and/or new cards that serve certain needed roles that Modern needs.
1. Nonbasic Land Hate:
Modern needs more nonbasic land hate, not necessarily _stronger_ in some cases, I'd actually lean towards the idea that Blood Moon might be _too_ strong. One of the mechanics I really like for this kind of effect they've started to use more is the kind on Ghost Quarter and From the Ashes. I'd very much like for From the Ashes to enter modern through a reprint or something, I think something like that would be a big help for the format. In general, stuff that hates less on having the mana, and having normal colors you need, and more on having exotic lands or heavy multi-color usage. Blood Moon I think is a sort of effect that goes a bit too far against non-red decks, which is why I like stuff like From the Ashes better. Still, Ghost Quarter is a little too hard to play in many kinds of decks. To help fulfill this gap of sorts, I'd like to see a sort of 'cycle' of spells around the level of 2 drops in terms of mana, that destroy/exile a nonbasic land and let it's owner replace it with a basic, along with an upside. Making sure they are 2 drops in most cases would ensure they could be played early against things like Tron (which could then dump out a basic in the place of the destroyed tron piece) before it comes online even if you are on the draw.
2. Blue instant speed fixing/draw:
A lot of Modern's decks need more instant speed blue draw. WotC just hasn't really printed the right _kinds_ of it that we need in some cases, even if they've printed close or powerful enough things to hint it is possible. Opt reprint would be a huge help at the 1 cmc level. Impulse or a scry based equivalent would be better at a 2 drop level, Anticipate is good enough for Standard, but not really for Modern I think. For a 3 drop, I think we need an instant speed equivalent of divination, although perhaps it would need to have a 1UU cost rather than 2U for balance reasons, or maybe slightly worse selection somehow (such as drawing a single land and a single non-land and revealing cards from the top of the library until you get those, so the opponent knows what you got and you can't just draw gas, making it more control focused). That is probably all that is _needed_, but some decks might also want strong 4 drop options, including an instant speed draw 3 at 4 cmc (Concentrate at sorcery speed basically sees no play, nor does Jace's Ingenuity at 5 cmc, and I'm sure they could figure out a way to balance it while still feeding the needed card advantage), and a scry 3/4 then draw 2 at instant speed for 4 cmc (basically a more Modern viable variation on Glimmer of Genius to sort of play a similar but more balanced role to what Dig Through Time did during it's brief time in the format).
A lot of this would be hard/dangerous to push through Standard, which may require careful nerfs to keep it still viable in Modern, but able to make it through Standard safely.
The instant speed part is most important though, because the decks that want these things also want to have mana held up for other options, then only use this card draw if they don't have to do something like play instant speed removal or counters during the opponent's main phases, so they don't waste mana/turns when holding up mana for other instant options.
3. Countering Power:
Modern needs more appropriate control based non-sideboard counterspells. It has awesome counterspells for the likes of midrange and tempo, with stuff like Remand and Mana Leak. But control wants to go the long game, and can't afford dead cards in hand late game, or to let the early game pass them by during their weakest points. The 3 drops we have generally aren't good enough to justify modern play, outside of some specific sideboard material, they need better upsides as some kind of cancel+ beyond current options like exiling or scry 1. For some reason, we have Mana Tithe but not Force Spike.
I think the best thing to do would be to give Modern: Force Spike for 1 drops in non-white control decks (like a theoretical UB control) Counterspell itself if possible for 2 drops, or if not possible, something along the lines of an 'abrupt/smother counter' 2 drop that counters stuff 3 cmc or less, along the lines of a reverse Disdainful Stroke, although it would be fine if that had UU mana cost Undermine and/or Absorb, I'm not entirely sure what a mono-blue option would be, perhaps it would generate a 0/1 flying elemental token as a form of being a cancel+.
We seem to be fine for sideboard focused counters, and 4 cmc has the awesome Cryptic Command
This would greatly help blue based control decks, probably without actually making them overpowered. The most important part is the above noted 2 drop section with either classic counterspell or the abrupt/smother like variant, due to timing issues, since you'll have 2 mana up on the draw when facing opposing 3 drops in dangerous combo decks starting to get combo pieces online (potentially 4 drop ones if they ramped at all) or when tron comes online in faster plays (which is a good argument for counterspell itself).
4. White beats
White is lacking in a lot of non-hatebears beats that are viable in Modern. I think 2 drop slot is one of the most important ones here. I don't think it needs something as breakable as Stoneforge Mystic, or quite the power level of something like Tarmogoyf (which I'd even consider banning in the future). However, I would not be opposed to white getting cards closer to the power level of (but tweaked for white color pie mechanics and balance) Scavenging Ooze, Young Pyromancer, Avatar of the Resolute, Strangleroot Geist, Moldgraf Scavenger, Sylvan Advocate, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Harbinger of the Tides and Stormchaser Mage. Designing the cards involved and balancing them right for white's section of the color pie might be hard, but I think Modern could really be helped by a growth in white aggro.
5. More main-board-able multi-card-type removal Maelstrom Pulse is great, as is Anguished Unmaking. Abrupt Decay is perhaps even a bit too strong, particularly being unable to be countered at that cmc and generally just slaughtering the possibility of things like enchantment based control decks. Kolaghan's Command is really close to the kind of thing I'd be looking for, not hugely powerful, but very flexible. I think we could use some of it in mono-color as well. 3 cmc seems to be the sweet spot here, so long as the resulting card is strong/flexible enough for Modern, but more colors and color combinations need more options. The result needs to be relatively lasting and reliable in the metagame, Banishing Light and the like just doesn't do the job, especially in a format with Abrupt Decay.
6. The pieces to form a stronger and more reliable mono-blue tempo deck
I'm not sure what those pieces would be, but I think they might want to build off of something like faeries or spirits tribal. Faeries isn't quite strong enough, on top of being harder to play than it needs to be. Another option could be building off of delver of secrets and related stuff.
7. Key targeted nerfs to knock down some of the higher tier 'linear' decks that care little about what the opponent does, including either bans or appropriate more powerful and flexible sideboard options across multiple colors and colorless
Decks to keep an eye on would include affinity, burn, and infect, as well as any noteworthy tier 1 combo decks.
8. Look at how to potentially reign in some midrange options
I think Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, Abrupt Decay, and IoK are all things to be wary of in particular, given how much they can prevent other decks from effectively fighting against the relevant midrange decks, and help shut stuff out of the format a bit too easily. This might not mean bans, it may mean stuff like flashback cards and sideboard options, or perhaps not all of them banned, but I'd certainly keep an eye on them and want to experiment to see if other decks can rise up without efficient oppression and walls that are hard to surpass or fight fairly in the format like this.
Even though my searing hatred for the neo-eldrazi could fuel a thousand suns and I would love nothing more than BFZ block to be retconned entirely I do not see how severely nerfing one of the only good midrange decks in the format would somehow fix Modern
Yeah, agree. In a normal situation, Eldrazi Temple would probably merit some consideration, but we have way bigger issues to worry about at the moment. It stems from the fact that Wizards is totally ok with dumping ridiculously powerful cards into the format and nothing remotely as powerful to answer them. If we had something like Wasteland in the format to keep the ridiculous lands in check, we'd never have to talk about decks like Amulet Bloom, Eldrazi, Valakut, or Tron, because the meta could adapt to naturally counter them. Instead, what happens is we get busted card after busted card without the generic answer type cards that Legacy has to keep balance in the format.
Wasteland in a format with shocklands.
Please...
Paying 2 life to get your land nuked the next turn = nice trade.
Land destruction is ok vs stuff like Cradle, Nykthos, Coffers, all the manlands and spell lands, but destroying fair dual/trilands - I don't think so.
RG Ponza is already a deck.
I dont think it would be all that bad. Gives decks like merfolk and goblins a reason to see play too. Wasteland would honestly help aggro more than any other deck right now probably. They are the ones who can (and do in legacy) use it as a way to keep the game in "early" game. But color greed punishing to me sounds fine,as well as hitting obnoxious fast mana lands. I wouldnt call it the right move right now.
And if it wants to strictly be a only fast mana/utlity land destruction, you can say "Nonisland, mountain, plain, swamp, forest" land, which is wordy and gross. I think wasteland that enters tapped would do alot, since aggro decks would be more shy about using it then, or had a 1 mana activation cost would even be enough people would shy away.
Even though my searing hatred for the neo-eldrazi could fuel a thousand suns and I would love nothing more than BFZ block to be retconned entirely I do not see how severely nerfing one of the only good midrange decks in the format would somehow fix Modern
Yeah, agree. In a normal situation, Eldrazi Temple would probably merit some consideration, but we have way bigger issues to worry about at the moment. It stems from the fact that Wizards is totally ok with dumping ridiculously powerful cards into the format and nothing remotely as powerful to answer them. If we had something like Wasteland in the format to keep the ridiculous lands in check, we'd never have to talk about decks like Amulet Bloom, Eldrazi, Valakut, or Tron, because the meta could adapt to naturally counter them. Instead, what happens is we get busted card after busted card without the generic answer type cards that Legacy has to keep balance in the format.
Wasteland in a format with shocklands.
Please...
Paying 2 life to get your land nuked the next turn = nice trade.
Land destruction is ok vs stuff like Cradle, Nykthos, Coffers, all the manlands and spell lands, but destroying fair dual/trilands - I don't think so.
RG Ponza is already a deck.
I dont think it would be all that bad. Gives decks like merfolk and goblins a reason to see play too. Wasteland would honestly help aggro more than any other deck right now probably. They are the ones who can (and do in legacy) use it as a way to keep the game in "early" game. But color greed punishing to me sounds fine,as well as hitting obnoxious fast mana lands. I wouldnt call it the right move right now.
And if it wants to strictly be a only fast mana/utlity land destruction, you can say "Nonisland, mountain, plain, swamp, forest" land, which is wordy and gross. I think wasteland that enters tapped would do alot, since aggro decks would be more shy about using it then, or had a 1 mana activation cost would even be enough people would shy away.
Even though my searing hatred for the neo-eldrazi could fuel a thousand suns and I would love nothing more than BFZ block to be retconned entirely I do not see how severely nerfing one of the only good midrange decks in the format would somehow fix Modern
Yeah, agree. In a normal situation, Eldrazi Temple would probably merit some consideration, but we have way bigger issues to worry about at the moment. It stems from the fact that Wizards is totally ok with dumping ridiculously powerful cards into the format and nothing remotely as powerful to answer them. If we had something like Wasteland in the format to keep the ridiculous lands in check, we'd never have to talk about decks like Amulet Bloom, Eldrazi, Valakut, or Tron, because the meta could adapt to naturally counter them. Instead, what happens is we get busted card after busted card without the generic answer type cards that Legacy has to keep balance in the format.
Wasteland in a format with shocklands.
Please...
Paying 2 life to get your land nuked the next turn = nice trade.
Land destruction is ok vs stuff like Cradle, Nykthos, Coffers, all the manlands and spell lands, but destroying fair dual/trilands - I don't think so.
RG Ponza is already a deck.
I dont think it would be all that bad. Gives decks like merfolk and goblins a reason to see play too. Wasteland would honestly help aggro more than any other deck right now probably. They are the ones who can (and do in legacy) use it as a way to keep the game in "early" game. But color greed punishing to me sounds fine,as well as hitting obnoxious fast mana lands. I wouldnt call it the right move right now.
And if it wants to strictly be a only fast mana/utlity land destruction, you can say "Nonisland, mountain, plain, swamp, forest" land, which is wordy and gross. I think wasteland that enters tapped would do alot, since aggro decks would be more shy about using it then, or had a 1 mana activation cost would even be enough people would shy away.
What about something like
Evolving Wasteland
Land
Evolving Wasteland enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap, sacrifice Evolving Wasteland: Destroy target non-basic land. That player may search their library for a basic land and put it into play. You may then search your library for a basic land and put it into play tapped.
I actually think Rishadan Port would be a great "wasteland" for Modern. It hates on lands, but at the expense of your own lands. And when you need to cast something, you can't tap them down.
The only problem with Modern, as with any format is that everyone copies their deck off the internet and there is no innovation. Attack the metagame! Instead of acting like as archetype X or Y is unplayable, or that card X or y is bad or not viable, design a deck that changes that. You have the tools just find some time.
Have you played with port?
As a DnT player, port is much much more powerful than Wasteland, it may even be the best single card in the deck. It gives free wins against infect, permanently locks down shocklands unless you pay 2 life, and has no place in a format that is sorely lacking in instant speed 1cmc utility effects. If they miss a land drop and you have an active port, the game is basically over, unless they have some really strong threat on board. I mean, imagine playing against scapeshift with port: Eot port down your blue sorce, untap, port down your other land, scapeshift. Or tron that tutors up ports with maps.
Port would also be at least a three of of in every fair deck in the format, probably a lot of the combo decks too, and we know wizards would print it at mythic. Enjoy your 300 dollar land.
Card would also never ever get through standard. It is the very embodiment of anti-fun.
I can see modern surviving wasteland mostly intact, you can play around wasteland, and as much as modern players hate to adapt, i'm sure they would. I cannot see the format surviving port, card is 100% nuts.
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Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
The only problem with Modern, as with any format is that everyone copies their deck off the internet and there is no innovation. Attack the metagame! Instead of acting like as archetype X or Y is unplayable, or that card X or y is bad or not viable, design a deck that changes that. You have the tools just find some time.
This is fine for small metagames like an FNM where you see the same players with the same decks every week. But people on these boards who talk about the format are looking at aggregate metagame numbers from MTGO and larger events where there's no real predictability other than tiers. Thousands of players have put in thousands of hours with the Modern card pool, and this is what we have. Again, making a "rogue" deck for an FNM is fine and players should be encouraged to do that. But making a "rogue" deck that attacks Bant Eldrazi, RG Valakut, Tron, Jund, Junk, Grixis, Company, Infect, Affinity, Burn, Zoo, Dredge, Merfolk, Ad Nauseam, and a few more all at once is incredibly difficult and likely not possible.
I think Ari Lax summed up my thoughts best when he 5-0'd a modern league with 8-rack of all things (whilst not dropping a single game).
.....
Notice a trend among the best players: they attack the format. The format doesn't lack answers, it lacks imaginative applications of the correct answers.
Cut out some of the quote here, but if these statements are true, and looking at the Teir 1/2/Developing forums again...then I would say the format is great right now?
That mentality works in a world where the most pressing issue is Swiper's cleptomania, but in the real world that is not the case and for that one amazing run of Tom Ross and Ari Lax "solving the format" with 8rack there are 50 decks (ran by pros) that attempt to do the same thing and fail miserably.
The issue with Modern is that the majority of the top decks all do the exact same thing but from completely different angles; a push for a fast kill that is hard to interact with. The "advantage" of Modern is that, without good card selection, it is a very high variance format, and because of that you can get away with a lot of silly stuff that is far from the optimal strategy. The result is a format with a number of peaks you can prey on and then a large amount of random noise; you can try and prey on the peaks but then you just have to pray that the stars align against the random noise or your deck with 4x RIP in the side ends up having to play against Ad Neuseam and Tron
So you can do that or you just run Infect, be generally faster than the random noise and just focus on beating the thing that beats you
So, here's the thing: the twin ban broke modern. The metagame is self evidently unhealthy to anyone not in denial. Look at top 32 of recent SCG opens - even BGx is slowly sliding towards tier 2 now. Take Dredge, for instance. It was already borderline broken until wizards decided to give it a nice 2 mana "dredge 18" sorcery. No fair deck can beat it game 1 - it just doesn't happen. So it ends up being another deck that demands 4+ sideboard slots just to have a chance, in a format where sideboards were already overstuffed. The thing, however, is that Twin could beat it - Slow it down enough to combo turn 4, just before dredge kills you. Same way it could reliably beat infect, affinity, suicide decks, burn, etc.
But the twin banning is just a symptom of a bigger problem with the modern banlist: wizards banned the best cards the fair decks had (deathrite shaman, Pod, Twin), and now the linear decks are just objectively more powerful than anything you can do in BGx or URx. Frankly, the only "fair" deck that is on the same level of the broken decks is Eldrazi, because sometimes they get to curve turn 2 thought-knot seer into turn 3 smasher.
Look, I play control. I played UW control even when I could play Twin, and I top 8ed a WMCQ with it - pretry nice for a tier 3 deck. I have also tried all sort of grixis and jeskai decks, and have decent succes in my meta. But it's HARD. You have to predict the meta correctly and be constantly adjusting your 75, and if you play less than optimally you're not winning a game. So I took a break, and decided to sleeve suicide bloo and burn stock lists on two consecutive modern nights and went 3-1 and undefeated, respectively. While making mistakes like missing letal on board and having pretty much zero experience with these decks or, hell, with very low agro experience. The decks simply played on auto pilot.
It's not just control that's bad, midrange sucks too. So, here's a modest proposal: unban Deathrite, Pod and Twin (maybe Jace and Stoneforge too) so that the nonlinear decks can do broken stuff too. That, or ban Primetime, Become Immense, Mox Opal, Bloodghast, Eldrazi Temple, the phyrexian mana cards and all the other broken cards in the format.
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
That's not true at all. Twin was much worse, but in a different way. It certainly wasn't a T4 rule violator, that's for sure, but it warped the meta around itself. What we're seeing right now can be described as the birth of a new format because the decks that warped the format around them are all gone, so everything else is shaking itself out.
Some things Dredge can do now are really absurd and Wizards might have to do something about it in the future but Twin unban is not the way to go. I still think that (and I was against the ban at the moment when they did it) Twin ban was one of the best things Wizards has ever done.
I agree with every word here. I was just as shocked as everybody else. I had purchased a playset of MM15 Twins just a couple months before since I had the rest of the deck and I decided I wanted Twin to fall back on when my other decks were poorly positioned. That Twin was always viable regardless of the meta game probably should have been the first warning.
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
Twin has won more GPs and PTs than Infect and Dredge put together.
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
Twin has won more GPs and PTs than Infect and Dredge put together.
This is absurd. Dredge wasn't even a deck while Twin was legal - the printing of prized amalgam is what made dredge viable. People fixate on an arbitrary number to defend the twin ban - number of wins,but that doesn't change the fact that the deck was never oppressive. It was never even 20% of the meta, never put more than 3 decks on top 8s of events... It was as warping as affinity, or jund. Without it, the format degenerated into decks trying to kill it each other as soon as possible, without interacting with the opponent.
But a twin unban doesnt fix that problem It covers it up with a deck that just flat out wins the game on turn 4. Dredge loses hard to more than 5 different grave hate cards, some of which every color has access too. Infect isnt all that hard when you are prepped for it too... hell, a lightning bolt or path or decay when timely will do its job most of the time.
Twin had counters to protect, hexproof to protect, removal to ensure, and its combo peices could lock down the mana you left up to do what ever you sided in.
Twin might stop linear decks from being top, but not because it promotes interactivity between decks. Nahiri control on the other hand... actually does. The answer isnt twin, its better interactive cards.
This is absurd. Dredge wasn't even a deck while Twin was legal - the printing of prized amalgam is what made dredge viable.
The claim was that nothing that Twin EVER did was as powerful as what Dredge/Infect are allowed to do now.
I don't see why I can't use counterexamples from Twin's entire lifespan to prove it wrong, given that the person who made the statement boldly challenged anyone to find a single counterexample from everything that Twin has EVER done.
Just stopped in to say I too wish the format was less linear autopilot and more decision-heavy midrange/control. The linear autopilot format doesn't even feel worth playing. I actually made a Standard deck. Yeah, I'm willing to lose hundreds on a Standard deck just because it feels more interesting. Seriously..
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
Twin has won more GPs and PTs than Infect and Dredge put together.
Well that's not really a fair comparison considering twin existed since the beginning of modern but mostly I was trying to be facetious. What I was tryiing to say was something like this:
"I do not think a twin unban would fix the issues with the format. However, I also think the twin combo was easier to interact with and more "fair" than post-kaladesh infect and dredge, and if those two are deemed to be balanced then twin is too."
The question is what should be allowed in modern. If infect and dredge's powerlevel are deemed ok then twin should also be. If twin is deemed to powerful, then so should dredge and infect.
I'm always very skeptical about the "twin will save us all" argument, however one thing is for sure: nothing twin ever did was as powerful as what dredge and infect are allowed to do right now
Twin has won more GPs and PTs than Infect and Dredge put together.
Well that's not really a fair comparison considering twin existed since the beginning of modern but mostly I was trying to be facetious. What I was tryiing to say was something like this:
"I do not think a twin unban would fix the issues with the format. However, I also think the twin combo was easier to interact with and more "fair" than post-kaladesh infect and dredge, and if those two are deemed to be balanced then twin is too."
The question is what should be allowed in modern. If infect and dredge's powerlevel are deemed ok then twin should also be. If twin is deemed to powerful, then so should dredge and infect.
Twin would also promote interaction as well, since the best strategy against it is main deck disruption like kill spells, counterspells, and discard spells. Any deck packing interaction and a reasonable clock (like Jund) is always a nightmare matchup, and having Twin back in the spotlight would promote more interactive decks. Not only that, but it would give other blue based control decks a positive matchup while also thinning the field of linear degeneracy, giving those blue based control decks better opportunities to play more targeted answers. That way NOBODY has their deck banned and we see if the influx of reactive decks that Twin brings with it helps restore balance to a format where ignoring your opponent and counting to 20 is the best strategy.
They do have a card that completely shuts down dredge and actually removed Dredge from Tier 1 and out of the meta in Legacy. Deathrite Shaman.
This is absolutely false. Deathrite Shaman does not completely shut down Dredge; it can't be used until the second turn, and it will only remove one card at a time, which is generally too slow against Dredge. It also requires mana to do so, slowing the Deathrite Shaman player down and giving the Dredge player more time.
Also false is the claim Deathrite Shaman removed Dredge from Tier 1 in Legacy. First, Dredge before Deathrite Shaman was never consistently Tier 1; it was always at the mercy of graveyard hate, so it would pop into Tier 1, then dive out when people started packing hate, then come back. But maybe the claim is that Deathrite Shaman removed it more permanently from Tier 1. The problem is that this is the exact opposite. Dredge (and to a lesser extent Reanimator) experienced a major resurgence after Deathrite Shaman's printing. Why? People were playing less graveyard hate because they were running Deathrite Shaman, but Deathrite Shaman isn't that great against Dredge for the above reasons (it's better against Reanimator but still could be too slow). Deathrite Shaman ironically made Dredge better in Legacy, not worse.
It is true that Dredge has declined remarkably in Legacy and hasn't come close to being Tier 1 for quite some time now, but that happened well after the printing of Deathrite Shaman.
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Historically it's true but not currently in modern.
Jeskai Nahiri absolutely feasts on Affinity, Burn, Infect, Zoo, etc. Those are the good match-ups and the reason to play the deck. Give me those aggro match-ups all day! What I don't want to see is Tron, Eldrazi, Scapeshift, and sometimes Dredge.
1. Nonbasic Land Hate:
Modern needs more nonbasic land hate, not necessarily _stronger_ in some cases, I'd actually lean towards the idea that Blood Moon might be _too_ strong. One of the mechanics I really like for this kind of effect they've started to use more is the kind on Ghost Quarter and From the Ashes. I'd very much like for From the Ashes to enter modern through a reprint or something, I think something like that would be a big help for the format. In general, stuff that hates less on having the mana, and having normal colors you need, and more on having exotic lands or heavy multi-color usage. Blood Moon I think is a sort of effect that goes a bit too far against non-red decks, which is why I like stuff like From the Ashes better. Still, Ghost Quarter is a little too hard to play in many kinds of decks. To help fulfill this gap of sorts, I'd like to see a sort of 'cycle' of spells around the level of 2 drops in terms of mana, that destroy/exile a nonbasic land and let it's owner replace it with a basic, along with an upside. Making sure they are 2 drops in most cases would ensure they could be played early against things like Tron (which could then dump out a basic in the place of the destroyed tron piece) before it comes online even if you are on the draw.
2. Blue instant speed fixing/draw:
A lot of Modern's decks need more instant speed blue draw. WotC just hasn't really printed the right _kinds_ of it that we need in some cases, even if they've printed close or powerful enough things to hint it is possible. Opt reprint would be a huge help at the 1 cmc level. Impulse or a scry based equivalent would be better at a 2 drop level, Anticipate is good enough for Standard, but not really for Modern I think. For a 3 drop, I think we need an instant speed equivalent of divination, although perhaps it would need to have a 1UU cost rather than 2U for balance reasons, or maybe slightly worse selection somehow (such as drawing a single land and a single non-land and revealing cards from the top of the library until you get those, so the opponent knows what you got and you can't just draw gas, making it more control focused). That is probably all that is _needed_, but some decks might also want strong 4 drop options, including an instant speed draw 3 at 4 cmc (Concentrate at sorcery speed basically sees no play, nor does Jace's Ingenuity at 5 cmc, and I'm sure they could figure out a way to balance it while still feeding the needed card advantage), and a scry 3/4 then draw 2 at instant speed for 4 cmc (basically a more Modern viable variation on Glimmer of Genius to sort of play a similar but more balanced role to what Dig Through Time did during it's brief time in the format).
A lot of this would be hard/dangerous to push through Standard, which may require careful nerfs to keep it still viable in Modern, but able to make it through Standard safely.
The instant speed part is most important though, because the decks that want these things also want to have mana held up for other options, then only use this card draw if they don't have to do something like play instant speed removal or counters during the opponent's main phases, so they don't waste mana/turns when holding up mana for other instant options.
3. Countering Power:
Modern needs more appropriate control based non-sideboard counterspells. It has awesome counterspells for the likes of midrange and tempo, with stuff like Remand and Mana Leak. But control wants to go the long game, and can't afford dead cards in hand late game, or to let the early game pass them by during their weakest points. The 3 drops we have generally aren't good enough to justify modern play, outside of some specific sideboard material, they need better upsides as some kind of cancel+ beyond current options like exiling or scry 1. For some reason, we have Mana Tithe but not Force Spike.
I think the best thing to do would be to give Modern:
Force Spike for 1 drops in non-white control decks (like a theoretical UB control)
Counterspell itself if possible for 2 drops, or if not possible, something along the lines of an 'abrupt/smother counter' 2 drop that counters stuff 3 cmc or less, along the lines of a reverse Disdainful Stroke, although it would be fine if that had UU mana cost
Undermine and/or Absorb, I'm not entirely sure what a mono-blue option would be, perhaps it would generate a 0/1 flying elemental token as a form of being a cancel+.
We seem to be fine for sideboard focused counters, and 4 cmc has the awesome Cryptic Command
This would greatly help blue based control decks, probably without actually making them overpowered. The most important part is the above noted 2 drop section with either classic counterspell or the abrupt/smother like variant, due to timing issues, since you'll have 2 mana up on the draw when facing opposing 3 drops in dangerous combo decks starting to get combo pieces online (potentially 4 drop ones if they ramped at all) or when tron comes online in faster plays (which is a good argument for counterspell itself).
4. White beats
White is lacking in a lot of non-hatebears beats that are viable in Modern. I think 2 drop slot is one of the most important ones here. I don't think it needs something as breakable as Stoneforge Mystic, or quite the power level of something like Tarmogoyf (which I'd even consider banning in the future). However, I would not be opposed to white getting cards closer to the power level of (but tweaked for white color pie mechanics and balance) Scavenging Ooze, Young Pyromancer, Avatar of the Resolute, Strangleroot Geist, Moldgraf Scavenger, Sylvan Advocate, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Harbinger of the Tides and Stormchaser Mage. Designing the cards involved and balancing them right for white's section of the color pie might be hard, but I think Modern could really be helped by a growth in white aggro.
5. More main-board-able multi-card-type removal
Maelstrom Pulse is great, as is Anguished Unmaking. Abrupt Decay is perhaps even a bit too strong, particularly being unable to be countered at that cmc and generally just slaughtering the possibility of things like enchantment based control decks. Kolaghan's Command is really close to the kind of thing I'd be looking for, not hugely powerful, but very flexible. I think we could use some of it in mono-color as well. 3 cmc seems to be the sweet spot here, so long as the resulting card is strong/flexible enough for Modern, but more colors and color combinations need more options. The result needs to be relatively lasting and reliable in the metagame, Banishing Light and the like just doesn't do the job, especially in a format with Abrupt Decay.
6. The pieces to form a stronger and more reliable mono-blue tempo deck
I'm not sure what those pieces would be, but I think they might want to build off of something like faeries or spirits tribal. Faeries isn't quite strong enough, on top of being harder to play than it needs to be. Another option could be building off of delver of secrets and related stuff.
7. Key targeted nerfs to knock down some of the higher tier 'linear' decks that care little about what the opponent does, including either bans or appropriate more powerful and flexible sideboard options across multiple colors and colorless
Decks to keep an eye on would include affinity, burn, and infect, as well as any noteworthy tier 1 combo decks.
8. Look at how to potentially reign in some midrange options
I think Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, Abrupt Decay, and IoK are all things to be wary of in particular, given how much they can prevent other decks from effectively fighting against the relevant midrange decks, and help shut stuff out of the format a bit too easily. This might not mean bans, it may mean stuff like flashback cards and sideboard options, or perhaps not all of them banned, but I'd certainly keep an eye on them and want to experiment to see if other decks can rise up without efficient oppression and walls that are hard to surpass or fight fairly in the format like this.
I dont think it would be all that bad. Gives decks like merfolk and goblins a reason to see play too. Wasteland would honestly help aggro more than any other deck right now probably. They are the ones who can (and do in legacy) use it as a way to keep the game in "early" game. But color greed punishing to me sounds fine,as well as hitting obnoxious fast mana lands. I wouldnt call it the right move right now.
And if it wants to strictly be a only fast mana/utlity land destruction, you can say "Nonisland, mountain, plain, swamp, forest" land, which is wordy and gross. I think wasteland that enters tapped would do alot, since aggro decks would be more shy about using it then, or had a 1 mana activation cost would even be enough people would shy away.
"destroy target land without a basic land type" could also work
What about something like
Evolving Wasteland
Land
Evolving Wasteland enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap, sacrifice Evolving Wasteland: Destroy target non-basic land. That player may search their library for a basic land and put it into play. You may then search your library for a basic land and put it into play tapped.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
As a DnT player, port is much much more powerful than Wasteland, it may even be the best single card in the deck. It gives free wins against infect, permanently locks down shocklands unless you pay 2 life, and has no place in a format that is sorely lacking in instant speed 1cmc utility effects. If they miss a land drop and you have an active port, the game is basically over, unless they have some really strong threat on board. I mean, imagine playing against scapeshift with port: Eot port down your blue sorce, untap, port down your other land, scapeshift. Or tron that tutors up ports with maps.
Port would also be at least a three of of in every fair deck in the format, probably a lot of the combo decks too, and we know wizards would print it at mythic. Enjoy your 300 dollar land.
Card would also never ever get through standard. It is the very embodiment of anti-fun.
I can see modern surviving wasteland mostly intact, you can play around wasteland, and as much as modern players hate to adapt, i'm sure they would. I cannot see the format surviving port, card is 100% nuts.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
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
Cut out some of the quote here, but if these statements are true, and looking at the Teir 1/2/Developing forums again...then I would say the format is great right now?
Spirits
The issue with Modern is that the majority of the top decks all do the exact same thing but from completely different angles; a push for a fast kill that is hard to interact with. The "advantage" of Modern is that, without good card selection, it is a very high variance format, and because of that you can get away with a lot of silly stuff that is far from the optimal strategy. The result is a format with a number of peaks you can prey on and then a large amount of random noise; you can try and prey on the peaks but then you just have to pray that the stars align against the random noise or your deck with 4x RIP in the side ends up having to play against Ad Neuseam and Tron
So you can do that or you just run Infect, be generally faster than the random noise and just focus on beating the thing that beats you
But the twin banning is just a symptom of a bigger problem with the modern banlist: wizards banned the best cards the fair decks had (deathrite shaman, Pod, Twin), and now the linear decks are just objectively more powerful than anything you can do in BGx or URx. Frankly, the only "fair" deck that is on the same level of the broken decks is Eldrazi, because sometimes they get to curve turn 2 thought-knot seer into turn 3 smasher.
Look, I play control. I played UW control even when I could play Twin, and I top 8ed a WMCQ with it - pretry nice for a tier 3 deck. I have also tried all sort of grixis and jeskai decks, and have decent succes in my meta. But it's HARD. You have to predict the meta correctly and be constantly adjusting your 75, and if you play less than optimally you're not winning a game. So I took a break, and decided to sleeve suicide bloo and burn stock lists on two consecutive modern nights and went 3-1 and undefeated, respectively. While making mistakes like missing letal on board and having pretty much zero experience with these decks or, hell, with very low agro experience. The decks simply played on auto pilot.
It's not just control that's bad, midrange sucks too. So, here's a modest proposal: unban Deathrite, Pod and Twin (maybe Jace and Stoneforge too) so that the nonlinear decks can do broken stuff too. That, or ban Primetime, Become Immense, Mox Opal, Bloodghast, Eldrazi Temple, the phyrexian mana cards and all the other broken cards in the format.
Which exactly would be "all the other broken cards in the format"?
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
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
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
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
This is absurd. Dredge wasn't even a deck while Twin was legal - the printing of prized amalgam is what made dredge viable. People fixate on an arbitrary number to defend the twin ban - number of wins,but that doesn't change the fact that the deck was never oppressive. It was never even 20% of the meta, never put more than 3 decks on top 8s of events... It was as warping as affinity, or jund. Without it, the format degenerated into decks trying to kill it each other as soon as possible, without interacting with the opponent.
Twin had counters to protect, hexproof to protect, removal to ensure, and its combo peices could lock down the mana you left up to do what ever you sided in.
Twin might stop linear decks from being top, but not because it promotes interactivity between decks. Nahiri control on the other hand... actually does. The answer isnt twin, its better interactive cards.
I don't see why I can't use counterexamples from Twin's entire lifespan to prove it wrong, given that the person who made the statement boldly challenged anyone to find a single counterexample from everything that Twin has EVER done.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
UBRGrixis Kiki Control
BGUSultai Shadow
GWRBushwhacker Zoo
EDH:
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose
GWU Roon of the Hidden Realm
Well that's not really a fair comparison considering twin existed since the beginning of modern but mostly I was trying to be facetious. What I was tryiing to say was something like this:
"I do not think a twin unban would fix the issues with the format. However, I also think the twin combo was easier to interact with and more "fair" than post-kaladesh infect and dredge, and if those two are deemed to be balanced then twin is too."
The question is what should be allowed in modern. If infect and dredge's powerlevel are deemed ok then twin should also be. If twin is deemed to powerful, then so should dredge and infect.
Twin would also promote interaction as well, since the best strategy against it is main deck disruption like kill spells, counterspells, and discard spells. Any deck packing interaction and a reasonable clock (like Jund) is always a nightmare matchup, and having Twin back in the spotlight would promote more interactive decks. Not only that, but it would give other blue based control decks a positive matchup while also thinning the field of linear degeneracy, giving those blue based control decks better opportunities to play more targeted answers. That way NOBODY has their deck banned and we see if the influx of reactive decks that Twin brings with it helps restore balance to a format where ignoring your opponent and counting to 20 is the best strategy.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
That said i doubt that 1 card answer will be unbanned since it puts Jund and Junk wwwwaayyy over the top.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
This is absolutely false. Deathrite Shaman does not completely shut down Dredge; it can't be used until the second turn, and it will only remove one card at a time, which is generally too slow against Dredge. It also requires mana to do so, slowing the Deathrite Shaman player down and giving the Dredge player more time.
Also false is the claim Deathrite Shaman removed Dredge from Tier 1 in Legacy. First, Dredge before Deathrite Shaman was never consistently Tier 1; it was always at the mercy of graveyard hate, so it would pop into Tier 1, then dive out when people started packing hate, then come back. But maybe the claim is that Deathrite Shaman removed it more permanently from Tier 1. The problem is that this is the exact opposite. Dredge (and to a lesser extent Reanimator) experienced a major resurgence after Deathrite Shaman's printing. Why? People were playing less graveyard hate because they were running Deathrite Shaman, but Deathrite Shaman isn't that great against Dredge for the above reasons (it's better against Reanimator but still could be too slow). Deathrite Shaman ironically made Dredge better in Legacy, not worse.
It is true that Dredge has declined remarkably in Legacy and hasn't come close to being Tier 1 for quite some time now, but that happened well after the printing of Deathrite Shaman.