In Modern, we've just come off two very exciting Grand Prix in Vancouver and Brisbane that saw Death's Shadow rise to the top, but a variety of decks put up strong results. While Modern certainly has its share of powerful cards, the format is in a spot right now that players seem to greatly enjoy.
Thanks Wizards for putting 3 lines. It's better than nothing. But I am really pissed that they wrote NOTHING about the lack of blue reactive decks.
Why there are only blue players who come crying ?
There has never been a top tier white deck and I have never seen a single player crying : "pls wizards white need some love" ...
In Modern, we've just come off two very exciting Grand Prix in Vancouver and Brisbane that saw Death's Shadow rise to the top, but a variety of decks put up strong results. While Modern certainly has its share of powerful cards, the format is in a spot right now that players seem to greatly enjoy.
Thanks Wizards for putting 3 lines. It's better than nothing. But I am really pissed that they wrote NOTHING about the lack of blue reactive decks.
Why there are only blue players who come crying ?
There has never been a top tier white deck and I have never seen a single player crying : "pls wizards white need some love" ...
FWIW, there was a brief period of time when people were advocating for white specifically via a sfm unban. It was maybe a year ago (I don't remember when, but I remember being part of the discussion). Several advocated a sfm unban because white is pretty bad in the format.
In regards to blue, people care more I think for two reasons. 1) Over the past several years wotc has slowly readjusted the color pie, and moved some of blue's primary strength (card advantage) over into green and black. In modern, the two best card advantage spells are green (traverse and stirrings). They have done so without compensating within blue itself to adjust for other colors absorbing some of it's identity (I'm talking perceived identity, not necessarily real identity). So I think blue mages feel somewhat...not betrayed, but a word that conveys a similar emotion with less intensity.
2) Unfair or not, blue has historically been great. Now in magic's premier non-standard format, it isn't just not-great, it is probably bad. It's hard to make the adjustment.
On a practical level, I would like modern to have more color balance. I think there are two easy unbans to move toward that goal. Is it necessary? Of course not, at least not any more than it is necessary that any of the macro archetypes are good. But it would be nice.
gkourou you could probably take about 20% the melodrama. I guess we'll see a lot less of you posting in the 'state' thread since you don't feel there is a discussion to be had here? Repeatedly telling others that there is nothing to discuss is pretty spammy, imo.
You're also not winning any sympathies by saying that blue has more of a right to a tier 1 deck than white, just sayin'.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
w has soul sisters, martyr proc, cheerios? if that's white, death and taxes, hatebears, and i'm sure there are some other viable strategies
blue has what? taking turns lol
i hope for a possible tier1/1.5 uw or esper control but it is missing something. it has potential, problably unbans wouldn't help tho. wotc has to just stop printing *****ty blue cards. nobody wants or is asking for tier 0 u decks, people is asking for something decent not in jund colors
^^
Those aren't aren't particulary competitive White decks besides D&T.
Blue has: Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Jeskai Control/Flash/Saheeli, Esper/UW Control.
All of them are more competitive than "Souls Sisters" or "Martyr Proc".
There is also a possibility that upcoming cards in Amonkhet could help improve the format in ways that aren't as risky as unbanning cards. Hopefully we see some more cards in the vein of fatal push.
Blue is just about the only color right now without some kind of decent removal option. Even green has some form of removal with beast within.
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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!
White Weenie as an example is as much a part of Magic's History as reactive blue control.
It's hypocritical to suggest that white players have something like D&T languishing in tier 2/3 that is somewhat competitive and should be happy with that while saying that blue NEEDS a tier 1 control deck.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
You're overreacting. You can't just say 2017 will see no unbans.
We have no idea what decks or cards could dominate or change the landscape of the format.
Blue is not in a good place and it has to be accepted for the time being. There's also an announcement in April, the data from this weekend and the next few may influence their decision.
Here's my perspective on the whole blue viability/reactive control/counterspell issue. Before I begin, it is worth admitting that I like reactive control strategies quite a bit and have been sad to see them out of modern, which means I have a certain level of bias in this discussion.
However, the real crux of the discussion, for me, is the idea that viable and present reactive control decks allow for more powerful interactions in other decks to be present. Basically, the presence of a reactive control deck should (hypothetically) disrupt more combo-centric decks. This function would allow more powerful interactions to be allowed as they would have to account for disruption on the stack. Overall, a good reactive control deck could serve to raise the allowable power level of Modern, which would then, in turn, result in less of a ban list. I will be the first to admit that this is kind of an "ideal world" scenario, but I think there is evidence from legacy to suggest that such a phenomenon does occur.
What I'm suggesting is pretty much the "police deck" idea. That being said, I don't think Twin really serves this purpose very well. Why? While twin did limit a variety of decks, it was itself a centralizing threat. Basically, I do not view "threatening a combo kill on turn 4" as having the same desirable effect as "forcing opposing strategies to regularly account for on-the-stack disruption." Both avenues can force strategic concessions from opponents, but one is really one deck and the other is a broad strategy. The format may have been better with twin in it (I'm not 100% sure), but, really, unbanning twin doesn't really fix this issue.
On the other hand, viable reactive control strategies could make it so that Twin was a safer unban, hypothetically at least.
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There is also a possibility that upcoming cards in Amonkhet could help improve the format in ways that aren't as risky as unbanning cards. Hopefully we see some more cards in the vein of fatal push.
Blue is just about the only color right now without some kind of decent removal option. Even green has some form of removal with beast within.
Blue and green are not supposed to have removal, which is why you almost never see a mono-blue or mono-green deck, they both invariably splash for a color unless they are entirely linear.
Don't usually post in the ban list thread but here we go.
If DSJ continues to leech the share of Jund from the meta and it falls to tier 2 do we think it's possible WoTC unban Jace, SFM and BBE at the same time?
If aggro and big mana decks (continue to?) dominate in the next few months does releasing all 3 at the same time allay some of the fears of each destroying all other midrange competition?
^^
Those aren't aren't particulary competitive White decks besides D&T.
Blue has: Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Jeskai Control/Flash/Saheeli, Esper/UW Control.
All of them are more competitive than "Souls Sisters" or "Martyr Proc".
Oh, don't get me wrong. From a metagame standpoint, white is in basically the same bad situation as blue. But the big difference is that white's Modern failures have been an ongoing problem that Wizards has passively ignored for years. From a banlist perspective, the only unban that could help this situation is SFM. By contrast, blue's Modern failures have been a recent problem in the last 6-8 months that Wizards actively created with recent format changes. From a banlist perspective, there are multiple possible unbans that could help this situation. All of that makes the blue issue more visible and, I would argue, more pressing.
I really don't think Blue is materially underpowered. There is room for some good blue spells to enter the pool from new sets without making Blue oppressive, which is good. The elder statesmen blue mages don't recognize how good they had it in the old days. The ability to do things as powerful or more so than your proactive opponent without having to commit resources to them on your own turn, so you avoid tons of risk was undercosted 15 years ago. Its closer to right now.
I support all the blue mages getting better card draw/selection and counterspells in the format so traditional Blue control can be a viable archetype in Modern. Viable is as far as I will go b/c nobody is entitled to what are referred to as Tier 1 decks, and those decks can change over time anyways. I feel for the Blue control mages having to run a tempo counter like Remand or having to play the game of choosing to main deck the 2-mana hard counter that deals w/ creatures or the one that deals w/ instants/sorceries b/c whiney babies in Standard don't like their cards hard countered from turn 2 on. I support this as somebody who has played the crap out of Randy Buehler's Draw Go and High Tide/Stroke of Genius, two of my favorite decks all time from MtG.
I will never support you having Splinter Twin or JtMS in Modern.
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I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
In Modern, we've just come off two very exciting Grand Prix in Vancouver and Brisbane that saw Death's Shadow rise to the top, but a variety of decks put up strong results. While Modern certainly has its share of powerful cards, the format is in a spot right now that players seem to greatly enjoy.
Thanks Wizards for putting 3 lines. It's better than nothing. But I am really pissed that they wrote NOTHING about the lack of blue reactive decks.
Why there are only blue players who come crying ?
There has never been a top tier white deck and I have never seen a single player crying : "pls wizards white need some love" ...
Here we go again. Blue had a Tier 1 deck, which was artifically removed from the game and a substitute never came. White had nothing from the start. I want both SFM to come without Bskull or something like that and something for blue reactive decks.
Sadly, I am certain we won't get any unbans.
This thread should become a Ghost Town unless DS dominates. Wizards dont care about Blue control.
Thank you, it seems like you at least got their message that we (reactive players) are screwed here and that no help is coming because they don't see a problem to fix. I actually consider myself a white player even if most of my examples on this thread have mentioned blue. I just don't see why it is that crazy to want a reactive blue or white share to be 5-10% of the format. This ban announcement just showed their true feelings for this format and they just don't care if a reactive strategy is any good or not.
You are completely correct that there is nothing left to talk about except a potential DS ban if it continues to rise. Blue is dead, white is dead, being reactive is dead. Nothing new to see here.
My LAST, very tiny shred of hope is that they didn't even plan to do anything to modern with this announcement. They specifically mention standard and vintage; possibly they wanted to use this ban announcement to get standard fixed while using the period to gauge the modern format with DS jund as the new best deck with potential for unbans in April. It would've been easy for them to say as much though and so I really just have to take their word for it that this is a good place for modern and we shouldn't expect anything to change anytime soon.
Here's my perspective on the whole blue viability/reactive control/counterspell issue. Before I begin, it is worth admitting that I like reactive control strategies quite a bit and have been sad to see them out of modern, which means I have a certain level of bias in this discussion.
However, the real crux of the discussion, for me, is the idea that viable and present reactive control decks allow for more powerful interactions in other decks to be present. Basically, the presence of a reactive control deck should (hypothetically) disrupt more combo-centric decks. This function would allow more powerful interactions to be allowed as they would have to account for disruption on the stack. Overall, a good reactive control deck could serve to raise the allowable power level of Modern, which would then, in turn, result in less of a ban list. I will be the first to admit that this is kind of an "ideal world" scenario, but I think there is evidence from legacy to suggest that such a phenomenon does occur.
What I'm suggesting is pretty much the "police deck" idea. That being said, I don't think Twin really serves this purpose very well. Why? While twin did limit a variety of decks, it was itself a centralizing threat. Basically, I do not view "threatening a combo kill on turn 4" as having the same desirable effect as "forcing opposing strategies to regularly account for on-the-stack disruption." Both avenues can force strategic concessions from opponents, but one is really one deck and the other is a broad strategy. The format may have been better with twin in it (I'm not 100% sure), but, really, unbanning twin doesn't really fix this issue.
On the other hand, viable reactive control strategies could make it so that Twin was a safer unban, hypothetically at least.
Or it is possible that it forces the metagame thowards decks that largely ignores stack interaction, such as dredge, bant eldrazi and tron (can adopt cavern of souls).
Note that i'm strongly in favour or more unbans, but this elitist and arrogant (not in your case) behavour of a part of the so called blue players it's really irritating.
I guess that depends on how strong the blue deck in question is. The whole point is that blue should die--hard--to certain things (especially dredge). But then those things die to something else, which maybe blue is good against. Again, this is all ideal world stuff, and it may not play out that way. However, it would be nice if we at least tried it. I think it is in WotC's and the playerbase's best interest if we can get modern closer to a largely self-regulating format. I really believe that reactive control deck makes that outcome more likely.
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Oh, don't get me wrong. From a metagame standpoint, white is in basically the same bad situation as blue. But the big difference is that white's Modern failures have been an ongoing problem that Wizards has passively ignored for years. From a banlist perspective, the only unban that could help this situation is SFM. By contrast, blue's Modern failures have been a recent problem in the last 6-8 months that Wizards actively created with recent format changes. From a banlist perspective, there are multiple possible unbans that could help this situation. All of that makes the blue issue more visible and, I would argue, more pressing.
Maybe, but one could literally argue the exact opposite.
White's (in)visibility problem is really glaring to players that want to play white. And we've been waiting on WotC to do something for literal years. It's like praying for rain during a drought. If you think the blue problem is more visible because WotC is causing it with poor ban list management, that's a fair, but myopic viewpoint. Insofar as Modern has problems at all (which on its own is up for debate), WotC has caused all of them. Some are caused by ban list management, but at this point, most of them are caused by WotC R&D.
Modern's inception was in 2011 and Modern-legal sets span back to 2003. It's currently 2017. For the last 14 years worth of sets, 6 of which have included the existence of Modern as a format, WotC has been incapable of printing cards that bring both blue and white up to par with red, green, and black. The blue cards that are currently on the ban list are there because WotC wants them there, not necessarily because they're too powerful for the format. That wouldn't be a problem, except as you point out, WotC has given blue players no alternatives; blue players are just stuck looking at a bunch of cards printed in the Modern-era that they aren't allowed to use.
At this point, I don't think it makes much sense to discuss unbannings - not because there aren't valid unban targets, but because the ban list is actually just a compilation of cards that prohibitively limit WotC's design space.
Referring to blue as the more pressing problem because of the ban list is effectively missing the problem entirely - it's been a long time since Modern was created and R&D still doesn't know how to fairly power up blue or white.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
It's true that blue is bad, but the format as a whole looks good, and full of diversity. Oh, well. I was very for the preordain/SFM unban, but after reading Todd Stevens article I had a feeling there'd be no unbans.
Blue is so bad that 27% of the decks on MTGGoldfish are running a basic Island.
I guess people just like to trot out horrible decks.
Affinity runs a single island...hardly a blue deck.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
White's (in)visibility problem is really glaring to players that want to play white. And we've been waiting on WotC to do something for literal years. It's like praying for rain during a drought. If you think the blue problem is more visible because WotC is causing it with poor ban list management, that's a fair, but myopic viewpoint. Insofar as Modern has problems at all (which on its own is up for debate), WotC has caused all of them. Some are caused by ban list management, but at this point, most of them are caused by WotC R&D.
I don't disagree. White has problems and Wizards caused those too. I just don't know if SFM solves those issues without creating new ones. I'm very confident Preordain goes a long way towards helping blue without breaking anything. And honestly, if it really broke some awful combo deck (which I think is very unlikely), I'm comfortable banning something from the combo deck if it promotes diversity. White's issues need to be fixed through new cards and reprints (larger design issues).
The blue cards that are currently on the ban list are there because WotC wants them there, not necessarily because they're too powerful for the format. That wouldn't be a problem, except as you point out, WotC has given blue players no alternatives; blue players are just stuck looking at a bunch of cards printed in the Modern-era that they aren't allowed to use.
Eh, TC was too powerful. P&P were at the time. DTT was probably too powerful if Legacy/Vintage are any indication, but we'll never know. JTMS never got a chance, and Preordain should be revisited. So it's a mix of legit bannings and less legit ones.
I think Blue and White are completely different cases. Blue is missing the tools in the format to create even a functional version of its traditional control shell w/o splashing for other colors. White has the cards, but the format is not good for white weenie unless it is of the Hatebears variety.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
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Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010
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Why there are only blue players who come crying ?
There has never been a top tier white deck and I have never seen a single player crying : "pls wizards white need some love" ...
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
FWIW, there was a brief period of time when people were advocating for white specifically via a sfm unban. It was maybe a year ago (I don't remember when, but I remember being part of the discussion). Several advocated a sfm unban because white is pretty bad in the format.
In regards to blue, people care more I think for two reasons. 1) Over the past several years wotc has slowly readjusted the color pie, and moved some of blue's primary strength (card advantage) over into green and black. In modern, the two best card advantage spells are green (traverse and stirrings). They have done so without compensating within blue itself to adjust for other colors absorbing some of it's identity (I'm talking perceived identity, not necessarily real identity). So I think blue mages feel somewhat...not betrayed, but a word that conveys a similar emotion with less intensity.
2) Unfair or not, blue has historically been great. Now in magic's premier non-standard format, it isn't just not-great, it is probably bad. It's hard to make the adjustment.
On a practical level, I would like modern to have more color balance. I think there are two easy unbans to move toward that goal. Is it necessary? Of course not, at least not any more than it is necessary that any of the macro archetypes are good. But it would be nice.
You're also not winning any sympathies by saying that blue has more of a right to a tier 1 deck than white, just sayin'.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Here I thought you were one of the posters who pushed back against flagrant hyperbole.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Unless you want to say Prison, which actually is kind of a (bad imo, it seems terrible) thing.
Blue on the hand, offers something to the metagame which in some people's eyes is a good thing. Permission.
Spirits
blue has what? taking turns lol
i hope for a possible tier1/1.5 uw or esper control but it is missing something. it has potential, problably unbans wouldn't help tho. wotc has to just stop printing *****ty blue cards. nobody wants or is asking for tier 0 u decks, people is asking for something decent not in jund colors
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Those aren't aren't particulary competitive White decks besides D&T.
Blue has: Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Jeskai Control/Flash/Saheeli, Esper/UW Control.
All of them are more competitive than "Souls Sisters" or "Martyr Proc".
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Blue is just about the only color right now without some kind of decent removal option. Even green has some form of removal with beast within.
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!
It's hypocritical to suggest that white players have something like D&T languishing in tier 2/3 that is somewhat competitive and should be happy with that while saying that blue NEEDS a tier 1 control deck.
We have no idea what decks or cards could dominate or change the landscape of the format.
Blue is not in a good place and it has to be accepted for the time being. There's also an announcement in April, the data from this weekend and the next few may influence their decision.
However, the real crux of the discussion, for me, is the idea that viable and present reactive control decks allow for more powerful interactions in other decks to be present. Basically, the presence of a reactive control deck should (hypothetically) disrupt more combo-centric decks. This function would allow more powerful interactions to be allowed as they would have to account for disruption on the stack. Overall, a good reactive control deck could serve to raise the allowable power level of Modern, which would then, in turn, result in less of a ban list. I will be the first to admit that this is kind of an "ideal world" scenario, but I think there is evidence from legacy to suggest that such a phenomenon does occur.
What I'm suggesting is pretty much the "police deck" idea. That being said, I don't think Twin really serves this purpose very well. Why? While twin did limit a variety of decks, it was itself a centralizing threat. Basically, I do not view "threatening a combo kill on turn 4" as having the same desirable effect as "forcing opposing strategies to regularly account for on-the-stack disruption." Both avenues can force strategic concessions from opponents, but one is really one deck and the other is a broad strategy. The format may have been better with twin in it (I'm not 100% sure), but, really, unbanning twin doesn't really fix this issue.
On the other hand, viable reactive control strategies could make it so that Twin was a safer unban, hypothetically at least.
(you forgot Pongify; how dare you)
Blue and green are not supposed to have removal, which is why you almost never see a mono-blue or mono-green deck, they both invariably splash for a color unless they are entirely linear.
If DSJ continues to leech the share of Jund from the meta and it falls to tier 2 do we think it's possible WoTC unban Jace, SFM and BBE at the same time?
If aggro and big mana decks (continue to?) dominate in the next few months does releasing all 3 at the same time allay some of the fears of each destroying all other midrange competition?
Oh, don't get me wrong. From a metagame standpoint, white is in basically the same bad situation as blue. But the big difference is that white's Modern failures have been an ongoing problem that Wizards has passively ignored for years. From a banlist perspective, the only unban that could help this situation is SFM. By contrast, blue's Modern failures have been a recent problem in the last 6-8 months that Wizards actively created with recent format changes. From a banlist perspective, there are multiple possible unbans that could help this situation. All of that makes the blue issue more visible and, I would argue, more pressing.
I really don't think Blue is materially underpowered. There is room for some good blue spells to enter the pool from new sets without making Blue oppressive, which is good. The elder statesmen blue mages don't recognize how good they had it in the old days. The ability to do things as powerful or more so than your proactive opponent without having to commit resources to them on your own turn, so you avoid tons of risk was undercosted 15 years ago. Its closer to right now.
I will never support you having Splinter Twin or JtMS in Modern.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Thank you, it seems like you at least got their message that we (reactive players) are screwed here and that no help is coming because they don't see a problem to fix. I actually consider myself a white player even if most of my examples on this thread have mentioned blue. I just don't see why it is that crazy to want a reactive blue or white share to be 5-10% of the format. This ban announcement just showed their true feelings for this format and they just don't care if a reactive strategy is any good or not.
You are completely correct that there is nothing left to talk about except a potential DS ban if it continues to rise. Blue is dead, white is dead, being reactive is dead. Nothing new to see here.
My LAST, very tiny shred of hope is that they didn't even plan to do anything to modern with this announcement. They specifically mention standard and vintage; possibly they wanted to use this ban announcement to get standard fixed while using the period to gauge the modern format with DS jund as the new best deck with potential for unbans in April. It would've been easy for them to say as much though and so I really just have to take their word for it that this is a good place for modern and we shouldn't expect anything to change anytime soon.
I guess that depends on how strong the blue deck in question is. The whole point is that blue should die--hard--to certain things (especially dredge). But then those things die to something else, which maybe blue is good against. Again, this is all ideal world stuff, and it may not play out that way. However, it would be nice if we at least tried it. I think it is in WotC's and the playerbase's best interest if we can get modern closer to a largely self-regulating format. I really believe that reactive control deck makes that outcome more likely.
White's (in)visibility problem is really glaring to players that want to play white. And we've been waiting on WotC to do something for literal years. It's like praying for rain during a drought. If you think the blue problem is more visible because WotC is causing it with poor ban list management, that's a fair, but myopic viewpoint. Insofar as Modern has problems at all (which on its own is up for debate), WotC has caused all of them. Some are caused by ban list management, but at this point, most of them are caused by WotC R&D.
Modern's inception was in 2011 and Modern-legal sets span back to 2003. It's currently 2017. For the last 14 years worth of sets, 6 of which have included the existence of Modern as a format, WotC has been incapable of printing cards that bring both blue and white up to par with red, green, and black. The blue cards that are currently on the ban list are there because WotC wants them there, not necessarily because they're too powerful for the format. That wouldn't be a problem, except as you point out, WotC has given blue players no alternatives; blue players are just stuck looking at a bunch of cards printed in the Modern-era that they aren't allowed to use.
At this point, I don't think it makes much sense to discuss unbannings - not because there aren't valid unban targets, but because the ban list is actually just a compilation of cards that prohibitively limit WotC's design space.
Referring to blue as the more pressing problem because of the ban list is effectively missing the problem entirely - it's been a long time since Modern was created and R&D still doesn't know how to fairly power up blue or white.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
Affinity runs a single island...hardly a blue deck.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I don't disagree. White has problems and Wizards caused those too. I just don't know if SFM solves those issues without creating new ones. I'm very confident Preordain goes a long way towards helping blue without breaking anything. And honestly, if it really broke some awful combo deck (which I think is very unlikely), I'm comfortable banning something from the combo deck if it promotes diversity. White's issues need to be fixed through new cards and reprints (larger design issues).
Eh, TC was too powerful. P&P were at the time. DTT was probably too powerful if Legacy/Vintage are any indication, but we'll never know. JTMS never got a chance, and Preordain should be revisited. So it's a mix of legit bannings and less legit ones.
What would you advise to address white's issues?
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.