We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
If mental misstep is forever going to be banned I don't see JtmS ever being off the list, both are widely considered design mistakes and JtmS is the way stronger Mistake.
SFM could see the light of day, I just don't think it helps non abzan decks as much as it just gives BGx decks a new 2cc value creature. It should have been costed at WW.
If having access to BS in UW control decks was something that would elevate them to a more competitive status we would see more decks running 1 BS 2 Steelshaper's Gift. Maybe D&T gets a small boost but its still better in Abzan
If having access to BS in UW control decks was something that would elevate them to a more competitive status we would see more decks running 1 BS 2 Steelshaper's Gift. Maybe D&T gets a small boost but its still better in Abzan
This demonstrates a misunderstanding of Stoneforge Mystic. It's not just the search, but being able to cheat it into play at a fraction of the cost, at instant speed, without putting the spell on the stack to get countered. SFM is so much more than Steelshaper's Gift that the comparison is highly suspect.
Super tired of black being the reason other colours can't have toys. I don't want anything banned, but using the excuse that 'black good stuff decks will get too good' whenever another colour has a toy they can splash as a reason for a ban is highly problematic. If we have to have stuff banned in order to prevent black decks from being too good, maybe the problem is the cards in black?
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
If mental misstep is forever going to be banned I don't see JtmS ever being off the list, both are widely considered design mistakes and JtmS is the way stronger Mistake.
Misstep is significantly more offensive and problematic than JTMS. This was true historically in every format where either were legal, remains true in even the most rudimentary tests, and is even true just theoretically. Modern is full of design mistakes; it's a powerful, non-rotating format. But there's a difference between design mistakes like Goyf, Temple, Opal/Ravager, Liliana, etc. (i.e. strong cards for a strong format) and design mistakes like Misstep (i.e. a broken card that broke basically every format where it was legal).
JTMS may not be unbanned. But JTMS's fate is totally independent of MM's, the latter of which will never be unbanned.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
I think the big take-away though, is that it just doesn't matter what they say or do. They have set unprecedented precedent over the past year and it will take a LONG time to earn back faith in their ability to manage formats. Taken individually, a lot of their actions are fairly harmless, but the collection of actions over the past year and a half combined with multiple R&D failures paints a picture of incompetence that they will be spending a long time trying to fix.
The only silver lining in this is that while there's really nothing they can do for Standard in the short term because of the lead time for design and production, there should be MASSIVE pressure to do something for older formats with regards to unbans. "Wait and see" continues to be the "solution," so I guess we "wait and see" again to see how Wizards will act on reactive blue decks next time....
So what is a 3/1 flying body worth to you guys? If we remove it from a card, how does this sound?
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
This card isn't good. It is a 1 for 0 which is the exact opposite of what blue interactive decks need. If it were to see play I think it would be again mostly as combo protection.
what combo would want this over TS/IoK? ad naus is already running those in the board, so is Goryo's, builds. Is Storm really going to run a card that puts them down a card and the deck is so redundant plus Past in Flames is naturally good against discard strategies I don't think they need it which is why its meta shares are increasing in the face of DS decks being so dominate.
By this logic its obvious that TS and IoK are just combo protection since so many combo decks run it right?
None? I never said any would play it all, much less over anything else. I said it was a bad card and if it had any use it would be in combo decks as protection, perhaps decks that didn't want black. I basically said it wasn't going to be played at all and if it WAS played it wouldn't be in interactive decks.
I'm not really sure what you are getting at with the "logic" comment, either. I didn't insinuate anything close to what you claim. I specifically mentioned the 1-0 aspect of this theoretical card which makes it very different from TS and IoK in interactive, fair decks.
I will try to do a better job in the future of clearly conveying my point because you clearly didn't understand a word I said.
Anyway, I'm still stubbornly holding out hope that they may actually give SFM and Preordain a chance for the next announcement after the cat update; but I'm certainly not holding my breath or expecting anything other than "no changes".
The idea of a traverse ban is just so ridiculous. It's an underpowered mediocre card that only works with a specific setup.
I spent a lot of time laying this out but I don't think anything except Death's Shadow or Thoughtseize makes sense. Nothing else would nip the deck badly enough. Thoughtseize is the key card that makes it all work by being a pump spell that disrupts. Shadow is the enabled card. Nothing else is fair or sufficient.
Wraith is distantly possible but I don't believe it would do enough; they'd just find some other gitaxian spell that'd be hideously annoying (e.g. surgical) or play another cycler.
I don't think TS is a bannable card, it's presence, and ability to disrupt the degenerate stuff keeps several more cards off the ban list, and leaves decks viable. I think that if any discard spell were up for discussion (and I'm not convinced of that), Inquisition of Kozilek should be the one to go. But Duress and Despise will just slot in over it and nothing will really change.
Despise and Duress do not self-damage. That's what makes thoughtseize so dominant in the Shadow deck. Inquisition could easily be replaced by Blackmail but Thoughtseize has no replacement.
I believe Death's Shadow is the only likely ban that could properly weaken the deck -- anything else will just be played around except thoughtseize which is a very unlikely ban.
In a vacuum I think thoughtseize would be the best ban since it would severely weaken the deck without removing the archetype, but the splash damage to other decks and the format at large is probably too much.
If we wanted to minimize splash damage to other decks, street wraith would make the most sense to minimize DS decks. It has the same effect that probe had for the deck that gave DS it main boost into the spotlight. The downside is that it does force a card out of Living end but they are gaining a lot of cards in Amonket that could replace the wraith.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
Counterspell is a card that they have compared in terms of power level to Dark Ritual and Swords to plowshares. I don't we get counterspell ever again, maybe we get a Stoic Rebuttal that is actually playable in Modern (idk maybe if you control 3 basic Islands this spell cost 1 less?).
Maybe WotC will look at the recent issues in standard and determine that bringing the Core sets back to inject permission, answers and disruption into standard which might not have fit the blocks design or as a way to say look at the format and determine yeah Pithing needle would totally fix this its coming out in the next Core set and let people know. And hopefully they will not make it a draft format not every set must be a draft format, like how much more efficient would the MM sets be at helping with card supply/costs issues if they didn't have devote so many slots to draft cards, WotC should know that this would be a clear shut up and take my money. Could we get 1 out of 5 sets designed with only constructed applications in mind? that would likely help with this issue over the long term.
So what is a 3/1 flying body worth to you guys? If we remove it from a card, how does this sound?
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
This card isn't good. It is a 1 for 0 which is the exact opposite of what blue interactive decks need. If it were to see play I think it would be again mostly as combo protection.
what combo would want this over TS/IoK? ad naus is already running those in the board, so is Goryo's, builds. Is Storm really going to run a card that puts them down a card and the deck is so redundant plus Past in Flames is naturally good against discard strategies I don't think they need it which is why its meta shares are increasing in the face of DS decks being so dominate.
By this logic its obvious that TS and IoK are just combo protection since so many combo decks run it right?
None? I never said any would play it all, much less over anything else. I said it was a bad card and if it had any use it would be in combo decks as protection, perhaps decks that didn't want black. I basically said it wasn't going to be played at all and if it WAS played it wouldn't be in interactive decks.
I'm not really sure what you are getting at with the "logic" comment, either. I didn't insinuate anything close to what you claim. I specifically mentioned the 1-0 aspect of this theoretical card which makes it very different from TS and IoK in interactive, fair decks.
I will try to do a better job in the future of clearly conveying my point because you clearly didn't understand a word I said.
Anyway, I'm still stubbornly holding out hope that they may actually give SFM and Preordain a chance for the next announcement after the cat update; but I'm certainly not holding my breath or expecting anything other than "no changes".
the logic of 'only combo would play this' that is already true of TS/IoK. Your saying Well only combo would run this hence its not a good thing regardless of its viability, so since that is a inherent negative quality doesn't that negative quality apply to TS/IoK since they are just helping combo protect its combo?
fyi I don't think thats true but this is a point people often make x would just be better in combo, combo would run x and it would make it better etc... yeah like TS/IoK. if this is a standard we are going to use to define what is safe then new better permission will never exist after all Combo will run it if it exist.
Yeah that card would be unplayable
I think SFM could come off, I still don't think its going to do all the miraculous things to assist Base White decks suddenly be better than Abzan. D&T will certainly run it but it will still not perform as good as Abzan. I don't think UW control runs SFM, they just stay on the Walker creature land plan.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
Counterspell is a card that they have compared in terms of power level to Dark Ritual and Swords to plowshares. I don't we get counterspell ever again, maybe we get a Stoic Rebuttal that is actually playable in Modern (idk maybe if you control 3 basic Islands this spell cost 1 less?).
Maybe WotC will look at the recent issues in standard and determine that bringing the Core sets back to inject permission, answers and disruption into standard which might not have fit the blocks design or as a way to say look at the format and determine yeah Pithing needle would totally fix this its coming out in the next Core set and let people know. And hopefully they will not make it a draft format not every set must be a draft format, like how much more efficient would the MM sets be at helping with card supply/costs issues if they didn't have devote so many slots to draft cards, WotC should know that this would be a clear shut up and take my money. Could we get 1 out of 5 sets designed with only constructed applications in mind? that would likely help with this issue over the long term.
Ok, let's say they did a reprint set of all the good constructed playable cards in Modern, once you own all the cards in the set, what is WOTC going to sell you next that's going to make you spend money again? That idea is really good for short term gain, but chances are you won't be repeat spending money again if they made another iteration of reprint set because you got all the cards you wanted the first time around. An idea like this would upset Hasbro shareholders and realistically won't happen, it's just a dream that many people wish would happen.
I know we're all on this "OP discard OMG!!" phase, but let's remember that IoK and TS have been around forever and it was always considered bad for Jund to run all 8 because of the very real cost associated with doing so. If it has turned into a problem (don't think it is) then it isn't the discard that caused it, but what the discard is protecting.
I didn't say it was over powered I said that the format could use a way to interact with discard spells in a reasonable way. DS would not be nearly as good if they didn't have the ability to remove any and all relevant cards from your hand. I've played tons of games both with and against DS decks(grixis here) and actually more often than not it was the discard that either won me the game or lost me the game because the discard removes the methods of interacting with the deck from the opponents game plan. By themselves DS, Gogy and Angler are just vanilla beaters its the discard spells that allow what is essentially just a body to win the game.
I gave a example of a game I played the other day in which I kept a hand with 3 removal spells in had 0 in hand on T3 when i untapped I had cast 0 of them. It takes strategy and skill out of the game when you can so easily make another player hellbent at such low cost. Modern is becoming a top deck format rather quickly and the best answer to discard spells is to run your own discard spells exactly the criticisms people will lob at Mental Misstep.
To be clear I do not want a ban, I want a method of interaction with discard spells that doesn't lead to what we have now which is splash black and play the discard spells
If having access to BS in UW control decks was something that would elevate them to a more competitive status we would see more decks running 1 BS 2 Steelshaper's Gift. Maybe D&T gets a small boost but its still better in Abzan
This demonstrates a misunderstanding of Stoneforge Mystic. It's not just the search, but being able to cheat it into play at a fraction of the cost, at instant speed, without putting the spell on the stack to get countered. SFM is so much more than Steelshaper's Gift that the comparison is highly suspect.
Super tired of black being the reason other colours can't have toys. I don't want anything banned, but using the excuse that 'black good stuff decks will get too good' whenever another colour has a toy they can splash as a reason for a ban is highly problematic. If we have to have stuff banned in order to prevent black decks from being too good, maybe the problem is the cards in black?
No I understand that cheating it into play is what makes SFM good, I was simply saying that I don't think UW control would want to clog up its list with a creature based strategy.
I also didn't say it shouldn't be unbanned because it would be better in Abzan than than UW or D&T I was simply stating this is a really unwarranted hope. I actually agree that a very Conservative attitude towards preservation of the power level of BGx decks does seem to be the reasoning behind peoples logic as to why other colors should get tools that are actually on par with it.
I get responses all the time about how "x would invalidate Jund" or "y would make discard unplayable" and I disagree those decks will always be viable decks but they are not afforded some protectionist element in the meta-game that says an other wise fair card must be banned because it makes TS/IoK slightly worse.
TS/IoK aren't JUST helping combo protect the combo though. There are other cards for that such as leyline of sanctity and pact of negation. TS/IoK have long been center pieces of mid-range decks more so than combo.
I also never said protecting a combo was a bad thing. I simply said the card sucked and if it had any hope of seeing play it was in combo. I didn't say only combo would run it so that is bad for the format, nor did I get anywhere close to insinuating it. I think the card described is perfectly safe and would see no play.
You are reaaally trying to force a Socratic dialogue, which I appreciate, but you are responding to comments that weren't actually made to force your narrative.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
If mental misstep is forever going to be banned I don't see JtmS ever being off the list, both are widely considered design mistakes and JtmS is the way stronger Mistake.
Misstep is significantly more offensive and problematic than JTMS. This was true historically in every format where either were legal, remains true in even the most rudimentary tests, and is even true just theoretically. Modern is full of design mistakes; it's a powerful, non-rotating format. But there's a difference between design mistakes like Goyf, Temple, Opal/Ravager, Liliana, etc. (i.e. strong cards for a strong format) and design mistakes like Misstep (i.e. a broken card that broke basically every format where it was legal).
JTMS may not be unbanned. But JTMS's fate is totally independent of MM's, the latter of which will never be unbanned.
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
It is very incorrect IMO to compare what happened in Legacy to Modern MM was a instance of a critical mass of free blue counters in a format in which one of those cards is FoW. It is why I think that a FoW style card will never be printed again as Modern has two of them in its card pool and one banned and the other is unplayable due to its higher restrictions. If we take WotC at their word as to why MM is banned it is because it would slow the format down to much and punish fast aggro decks looking to establish themselves on T1. If it was Legal would it see heavy play yes but that is going to be true of any powerful card printed that is viable in modern.
I would point that JtmS was equally a problem causing card in multiple formats being banned in both Standard and Extended which are both far closer to Modern in terms of power levels than Legacy. It is worse than MM in that it a broken design and a finisher, MM can only every prolong the game I can never cast a MM that wins the game on its own I have to have a board established or a specific game state in order to achieve that.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
Counterspell is a card that they have compared in terms of power level to Dark Ritual and Swords to plowshares. I don't we get counterspell ever again, maybe we get a Stoic Rebuttal that is actually playable in Modern (idk maybe if you control 3 basic Islands this spell cost 1 less?).
Maybe WotC will look at the recent issues in standard and determine that bringing the Core sets back to inject permission, answers and disruption into standard which might not have fit the blocks design or as a way to say look at the format and determine yeah Pithing needle would totally fix this its coming out in the next Core set and let people know. And hopefully they will not make it a draft format not every set must be a draft format, like how much more efficient would the MM sets be at helping with card supply/costs issues if they didn't have devote so many slots to draft cards, WotC should know that this would be a clear shut up and take my money. Could we get 1 out of 5 sets designed with only constructed applications in mind? that would likely help with this issue over the long term.
Ok, let's say they did a reprint set of all the good constructed playable cards in Modern, once you own all the cards in the set, what is WOTC going to sell you next that's going to make you spend money again? That idea is really good for short term gain, but chances are you won't be repeat spending money again if they made another iteration of reprint set because you got all the cards you wanted the first time around. An idea like this would upset Hasbro shareholders and realistically won't happen, it's just a dream that many people wish would happen.
Im pretty sure that the cards will always be in demand and WotC could print them and profit consistently. Blood Moon has been reprinted like 6 times and its still a 30-50 dollar card.
Also I didn't say just make a set with nothing but the most playable cards and staples in modern, I said bring back the core set which was the best vehicle for reprinting cards into Standard. For instance counterspell was only ever printed in 3 block sets it was reprinted into standard through core sets more often.
I hold little hope of wizards doing much better on answers/reactive spells in standard because they still have to balanced within the block, the last time they reprinted a good modern card was TS and they have openly stated that it was a mistake to do so. I mean they were talking about a 4cc enchantment with flash though it is premier removal, will see maybe fringe play in modern; premier in standard pretty bad in modern.
TS/IoK aren't JUST helping combo protect the combo though. There are other cards for that such as leyline of sanctity and pact of negation. TS/IoK have long been center pieces of mid-range decks more so than combo.
I also never said protecting a combo was a bad thing. I simply said the card sucked and if it had any hope of seeing play it was in combo. I didn't say only combo would run it so that is bad for the format, nor did I get anywhere close to insinuating it. I think the card described is perfectly safe and would see no play.
You are reaaally trying to force a Socratic dialogue, which I appreciate, but you are responding to comments that weren't actually made to force your narrative.
Actually the phrase "only combo would play it" or "makes combo to good" is a pejorative phrasing it carries the under text of contempt and disapproval regardless of if you intended it to it simply does. No one ever says "only combo would play it" or "it makes combo to good" in positive way so sorry if I took your statement to mean something other than you intended. It is simply a justification that is lobbed at tons of spells as though it isn't true of spells currently in the format. Ad Naus runs TS to steal your TS but it is outside of the realm of reason to apply the same logic to TS.
If a card was printed or made legal that improved combo in some minor way, it would also likely see far more play in fair mid-range/Tempo decks. Which is true of TS. I just like consistency in applications of logic it seems like a odd form of card board xenophobia that people have of the unknown in the game, its a game if its bad we can ban it.
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
This seems like a good point. If TS/IoK are pervasive answers that are often best answered by the opponent simply playing them as well. TS/IOK are both amongst the most played spells in the format. Would Mental Misstep really be more pervasive than that? While TS/IoK are not exactly cards that "can go in any deck" as will be cited for MM, but I'm not sure that TS/IoK almost forcing fair decks to play them is much different.
Anyone with experience in NO banlist modern want to chime in with experience actually playing in a modern with Mental Misstep? Did every deck play them? Were they more common than IoK/TS?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
This seems like a good point. If TS/IoK are pervasive answers that are often best answered by the opponent simply playing them as well. TS/IOK are both amongst the most played spells in the format. Would Mental Misstep really be more pervasive than that? While TS/IoK are not exactly cards that "can go in any deck" as will be cited for MM, but I'm not sure that TS/IoK almost forcing fair decks to play them is much different.
Anyone with experience in NO banlist modern want to chime in with experience actually playing in a modern with Mental Misstep? Did every deck play them? Were they more common than IoK/TS?
I've actually played a bunch of No banned list modern at my friends store and often you SB it out. Its great game one against decks like storm or other decks looking to use rite of flame decks. Thats my experience with the card at least and I am by no means claiming to be an authority as I've played in something like 16 no banned list casual events.
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
Those cards aren't currently ubiquitous. You only run them if you are playing black. The only reason they are on an upswing is because another black card, DS, is pushing black decks more than they were pushed before. Pre-DS black decks with TS/IoK weren't a problem. If there is a problem now, it's because of the DS element, not the discard element. Also, even if we look at the decks running TS/IoK, it's still not a majority of decks and not a majority of the metagame.
With MM, you don't have to do anything to play the card. Anyone can play it. IoK/TS aren't even good answers to themselves; many discard decks board out copies in the mirror or against other TS/IoK copies. By contrast, MM is always a good answer to itself. MM is even more problematic in answering most of Modern's answers (Push, TS, IoK, Path, Bolt) but not addressing the range of actual threats. This likely means it benefits decks trying to protect threats more than decks trying to answer threats, which is a further problem that just aggravates one of Modern's most persistent complaints.
I'm not even sure if these are serious arguments anymore or if we just ran out of things to talk about. Is there really a contingent in here that wants to do some combination of banning TS and/or IoK, and/or unbanning MM? What problems does any of that possibly solve?
At least for my part, just entertaining cards on the banlist as a thought experiment. I don't want any cards banned (least of all IoK/TS). I've never personally played MM (didn't play from lorwyn until end of theros) so the idea of a conditional free counterspell has some appeal.
I know it has a bad reputation, but it seems a little obtuse to question even entertaining a thought experiment.
edit: I think the broad consensus is that nothing should be banned, so naturally the conversation would turn to unbans.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
Those cards aren't currently ubiquitous. You only run them if you are playing black. The only reason they are on an upswing is because another black card, DS, is pushing black decks more than they were pushed before. Pre-DS black decks with TS/IoK weren't a problem. If there is a problem now, it's because of the DS element, not the discard element. Also, even if we look at the decks running TS/IoK, it's still not a majority of decks and not a majority of the metagame.
With MM, you don't have to do anything to play the card. Anyone can play it. IoK/TS aren't even good answers to themselves; many discard decks board out copies in the mirror or against other TS/IoK copies. By contrast, MM is always a good answer to itself. MM is even more problematic in answering most of Modern's answers (Push, TS, IoK, Path, Bolt) but not addressing the range of actual threats. This likely means it benefits decks trying to protect threats more than decks trying to answer threats, which is a further problem that just aggravates one of Modern's most persistent complaints.
I'm not even sure if these are serious arguments anymore or if we just ran out of things to talk about. Is there really a contingent in here that wants to do some combination of banning TS and/or IoK, and/or unbanning MM? What problems does any of that possibly solve?
What fair mid-range/tempo decks exist that do not run TS/IoK?
And yes TS/IoK are their own best answers game one, do you side them out for the post board matches because the mutually assured top deck war is coming. Certainly TS/IoK are the most defining quality of fair decks in Modern since its inception.
The original comment I had made was regarding WotC developing a better way to interact with TS/IoK for other non-black based fair decks. Something similar to the anti-counterspell Trap cards or the count be countered cycle. And the response was it would make TS/IoK unplayable and I do not believe that is true at all.
I disagree with your critique of MM against threats, I actually agree with WotC that it would be very good against fast aggro decks looking to apply threats on T1 and would slow the format down a good bit(1-2 turns possibly more).
This kind of attitude is why I think that WotC will never print a FoW option in Modern magic design, we have 2 in the card pool one is practically unplayable the other is so good it has never seen legal play. I have a feeling that if WotC does manage to print a playable modern level card that wrestles the BGx monopoly on fair decks it will be banned for making BGx decks slightly less than great because players will complain and you squeaky wheel.
Do you think that UU draw two , at instant speed would be to strong?
To be clear I do not want a ban, I want a method of interaction with discard spells that doesn't lead to what we have now which is splash black and play the discard spells
Don't we have several cards in white/green already that have anti discard clauses on them?
Probably only a few cards on the Banlist have so much carved their name in a tomb as Mental Misstep, according to Wizards. According to the latest announcement, Gitaxian Probe is up there as well. This same list includes cards like Glimpse Of Nature(was an example of a crazy power level by Sam Stoddart), Eye Of Ugin, Hypergenesis(it was an example of a crazy power level as well), Treasure Cruise(obvious reasons), etc.
Free mana cards that tend to be played by everyone, warp their metagame around them and represent a power level of Vintage should not even be in a serious discussion(wpgstevo's thought experiment excluded-it's a nice one, I admit).
I mean, the card could be and can indeed be easily restricted in Vintage in one year from now, mind that. Most Vintage decks run 2-4 copies(usually 2 or 3).
Probe is to good in legacy/vintage because free cantrips in those formats is way more profound of a impact.
In modern MM was packaged with JtmS and SFM as being bad and JtmS was by far the one they thought was the most risky.
To be clear I do not want a ban, I want a method of interaction with discard spells that doesn't lead to what we have now which is splash black and play the discard spells
Don't we have several cards in white/green already that have anti discard clauses on them?
2 the elephant and the baloth, those are very narrow and more often useless unless they are the only cards in hand. Could we get them in colors not associated to BGx decks? its like BGx cards are the only cards that get pushes for playable cards.
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Scatter's presence in AKH has no bearing on CS's (or another powerful spell's) potential in future Standard sets. Wizards recently acknowledged that answers were too weak and threats too strong, and it will take a while for that realization to play out in design philosophy. If we still get Scatters and Negates in a year from now, I'll agree with you. Until then, we can remain hopeful.
As for the unbans, Wizards all but explicitly said they were too busy testing Standard to worry about Modern unbans. They acknowledged a potential color imbalance and, given the recent Standard ban of Guardian, I expect they will test out Modern solutions for the next update. If we haven't seen these spells unbanend by July and the format looks like it does now, then I'll agree with you and assume Wizards believes blue/white are in fine spots.
If mental misstep is forever going to be banned I don't see JtmS ever being off the list, both are widely considered design mistakes and JtmS is the way stronger Mistake.
SFM could see the light of day, I just don't think it helps non abzan decks as much as it just gives BGx decks a new 2cc value creature. It should have been costed at WW.
If having access to BS in UW control decks was something that would elevate them to a more competitive status we would see more decks running 1 BS 2 Steelshaper's Gift. Maybe D&T gets a small boost but its still better in Abzan
Super tired of black being the reason other colours can't have toys. I don't want anything banned, but using the excuse that 'black good stuff decks will get too good' whenever another colour has a toy they can splash as a reason for a ban is highly problematic. If we have to have stuff banned in order to prevent black decks from being too good, maybe the problem is the cards in black?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Misstep is significantly more offensive and problematic than JTMS. This was true historically in every format where either were legal, remains true in even the most rudimentary tests, and is even true just theoretically. Modern is full of design mistakes; it's a powerful, non-rotating format. But there's a difference between design mistakes like Goyf, Temple, Opal/Ravager, Liliana, etc. (i.e. strong cards for a strong format) and design mistakes like Misstep (i.e. a broken card that broke basically every format where it was legal).
JTMS may not be unbanned. But JTMS's fate is totally independent of MM's, the latter of which will never be unbanned.
I think the big take-away though, is that it just doesn't matter what they say or do. They have set unprecedented precedent over the past year and it will take a LONG time to earn back faith in their ability to manage formats. Taken individually, a lot of their actions are fairly harmless, but the collection of actions over the past year and a half combined with multiple R&D failures paints a picture of incompetence that they will be spending a long time trying to fix.
The only silver lining in this is that while there's really nothing they can do for Standard in the short term because of the lead time for design and production, there should be MASSIVE pressure to do something for older formats with regards to unbans. "Wait and see" continues to be the "solution," so I guess we "wait and see" again to see how Wizards will act on reactive blue decks next time....
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
None? I never said any would play it all, much less over anything else. I said it was a bad card and if it had any use it would be in combo decks as protection, perhaps decks that didn't want black. I basically said it wasn't going to be played at all and if it WAS played it wouldn't be in interactive decks.
I'm not really sure what you are getting at with the "logic" comment, either. I didn't insinuate anything close to what you claim. I specifically mentioned the 1-0 aspect of this theoretical card which makes it very different from TS and IoK in interactive, fair decks.
I will try to do a better job in the future of clearly conveying my point because you clearly didn't understand a word I said.
Anyway, I'm still stubbornly holding out hope that they may actually give SFM and Preordain a chance for the next announcement after the cat update; but I'm certainly not holding my breath or expecting anything other than "no changes".
If we wanted to minimize splash damage to other decks, street wraith would make the most sense to minimize DS decks. It has the same effect that probe had for the deck that gave DS it main boost into the spotlight. The downside is that it does force a card out of Living end but they are gaining a lot of cards in Amonket that could replace the wraith.
Counterspell is a card that they have compared in terms of power level to Dark Ritual and Swords to plowshares. I don't we get counterspell ever again, maybe we get a Stoic Rebuttal that is actually playable in Modern (idk maybe if you control 3 basic Islands this spell cost 1 less?).
Maybe WotC will look at the recent issues in standard and determine that bringing the Core sets back to inject permission, answers and disruption into standard which might not have fit the blocks design or as a way to say look at the format and determine yeah Pithing needle would totally fix this its coming out in the next Core set and let people know. And hopefully they will not make it a draft format not every set must be a draft format, like how much more efficient would the MM sets be at helping with card supply/costs issues if they didn't have devote so many slots to draft cards, WotC should know that this would be a clear shut up and take my money. Could we get 1 out of 5 sets designed with only constructed applications in mind? that would likely help with this issue over the long term.
the logic of 'only combo would play this' that is already true of TS/IoK. Your saying Well only combo would run this hence its not a good thing regardless of its viability, so since that is a inherent negative quality doesn't that negative quality apply to TS/IoK since they are just helping combo protect its combo?
fyi I don't think thats true but this is a point people often make x would just be better in combo, combo would run x and it would make it better etc... yeah like TS/IoK. if this is a standard we are going to use to define what is safe then new better permission will never exist after all Combo will run it if it exist.
Yeah that card would be unplayable
I think SFM could come off, I still don't think its going to do all the miraculous things to assist Base White decks suddenly be better than Abzan. D&T will certainly run it but it will still not perform as good as Abzan. I don't think UW control runs SFM, they just stay on the Walker creature land plan.
Ok, let's say they did a reprint set of all the good constructed playable cards in Modern, once you own all the cards in the set, what is WOTC going to sell you next that's going to make you spend money again? That idea is really good for short term gain, but chances are you won't be repeat spending money again if they made another iteration of reprint set because you got all the cards you wanted the first time around. An idea like this would upset Hasbro shareholders and realistically won't happen, it's just a dream that many people wish would happen.
I didn't say it was over powered I said that the format could use a way to interact with discard spells in a reasonable way. DS would not be nearly as good if they didn't have the ability to remove any and all relevant cards from your hand. I've played tons of games both with and against DS decks(grixis here) and actually more often than not it was the discard that either won me the game or lost me the game because the discard removes the methods of interacting with the deck from the opponents game plan. By themselves DS, Gogy and Angler are just vanilla beaters its the discard spells that allow what is essentially just a body to win the game.
I gave a example of a game I played the other day in which I kept a hand with 3 removal spells in had 0 in hand on T3 when i untapped I had cast 0 of them. It takes strategy and skill out of the game when you can so easily make another player hellbent at such low cost. Modern is becoming a top deck format rather quickly and the best answer to discard spells is to run your own discard spells exactly the criticisms people will lob at Mental Misstep.
To be clear I do not want a ban, I want a method of interaction with discard spells that doesn't lead to what we have now which is splash black and play the discard spells
No I understand that cheating it into play is what makes SFM good, I was simply saying that I don't think UW control would want to clog up its list with a creature based strategy.
I also didn't say it shouldn't be unbanned because it would be better in Abzan than than UW or D&T I was simply stating this is a really unwarranted hope. I actually agree that a very Conservative attitude towards preservation of the power level of BGx decks does seem to be the reasoning behind peoples logic as to why other colors should get tools that are actually on par with it.
I get responses all the time about how "x would invalidate Jund" or "y would make discard unplayable" and I disagree those decks will always be viable decks but they are not afforded some protectionist element in the meta-game that says an other wise fair card must be banned because it makes TS/IoK slightly worse.
I also never said protecting a combo was a bad thing. I simply said the card sucked and if it had any hope of seeing play it was in combo. I didn't say only combo would run it so that is bad for the format, nor did I get anywhere close to insinuating it. I think the card described is perfectly safe and would see no play.
You are reaaally trying to force a Socratic dialogue, which I appreciate, but you are responding to comments that weren't actually made to force your narrative.
So you leaning on the position that metal misstep would be ubiquitous right? My counter to that would be So it is TS/IoK, the best answer against 1cc targeted discard is to run 1cc targeted discard to discard your opponents discard.
It is very incorrect IMO to compare what happened in Legacy to Modern MM was a instance of a critical mass of free blue counters in a format in which one of those cards is FoW. It is why I think that a FoW style card will never be printed again as Modern has two of them in its card pool and one banned and the other is unplayable due to its higher restrictions. If we take WotC at their word as to why MM is banned it is because it would slow the format down to much and punish fast aggro decks looking to establish themselves on T1. If it was Legal would it see heavy play yes but that is going to be true of any powerful card printed that is viable in modern.
I would point that JtmS was equally a problem causing card in multiple formats being banned in both Standard and Extended which are both far closer to Modern in terms of power levels than Legacy. It is worse than MM in that it a broken design and a finisher, MM can only every prolong the game I can never cast a MM that wins the game on its own I have to have a board established or a specific game state in order to achieve that.
Im pretty sure that the cards will always be in demand and WotC could print them and profit consistently. Blood Moon has been reprinted like 6 times and its still a 30-50 dollar card.
Also I didn't say just make a set with nothing but the most playable cards and staples in modern, I said bring back the core set which was the best vehicle for reprinting cards into Standard. For instance counterspell was only ever printed in 3 block sets it was reprinted into standard through core sets more often.
I hold little hope of wizards doing much better on answers/reactive spells in standard because they still have to balanced within the block, the last time they reprinted a good modern card was TS and they have openly stated that it was a mistake to do so. I mean they were talking about a 4cc enchantment with flash though it is premier removal, will see maybe fringe play in modern; premier in standard pretty bad in modern.
Actually the phrase "only combo would play it" or "makes combo to good" is a pejorative phrasing it carries the under text of contempt and disapproval regardless of if you intended it to it simply does. No one ever says "only combo would play it" or "it makes combo to good" in positive way so sorry if I took your statement to mean something other than you intended. It is simply a justification that is lobbed at tons of spells as though it isn't true of spells currently in the format. Ad Naus runs TS to steal your TS but it is outside of the realm of reason to apply the same logic to TS.
If a card was printed or made legal that improved combo in some minor way, it would also likely see far more play in fair mid-range/Tempo decks. Which is true of TS. I just like consistency in applications of logic it seems like a odd form of card board xenophobia that people have of the unknown in the game, its a game if its bad we can ban it.
Anyone with experience in NO banlist modern want to chime in with experience actually playing in a modern with Mental Misstep? Did every deck play them? Were they more common than IoK/TS?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I've actually played a bunch of No banned list modern at my friends store and often you SB it out. Its great game one against decks like storm or other decks looking to use rite of flame decks. Thats my experience with the card at least and I am by no means claiming to be an authority as I've played in something like 16 no banned list casual events.
Those cards aren't currently ubiquitous. You only run them if you are playing black. The only reason they are on an upswing is because another black card, DS, is pushing black decks more than they were pushed before. Pre-DS black decks with TS/IoK weren't a problem. If there is a problem now, it's because of the DS element, not the discard element. Also, even if we look at the decks running TS/IoK, it's still not a majority of decks and not a majority of the metagame.
With MM, you don't have to do anything to play the card. Anyone can play it. IoK/TS aren't even good answers to themselves; many discard decks board out copies in the mirror or against other TS/IoK copies. By contrast, MM is always a good answer to itself. MM is even more problematic in answering most of Modern's answers (Push, TS, IoK, Path, Bolt) but not addressing the range of actual threats. This likely means it benefits decks trying to protect threats more than decks trying to answer threats, which is a further problem that just aggravates one of Modern's most persistent complaints.
I'm not even sure if these are serious arguments anymore or if we just ran out of things to talk about. Is there really a contingent in here that wants to do some combination of banning TS and/or IoK, and/or unbanning MM? What problems does any of that possibly solve?
I know it has a bad reputation, but it seems a little obtuse to question even entertaining a thought experiment.
edit: I think the broad consensus is that nothing should be banned, so naturally the conversation would turn to unbans.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
What fair mid-range/tempo decks exist that do not run TS/IoK?
And yes TS/IoK are their own best answers game one, do you side them out for the post board matches because the mutually assured top deck war is coming. Certainly TS/IoK are the most defining quality of fair decks in Modern since its inception.
The original comment I had made was regarding WotC developing a better way to interact with TS/IoK for other non-black based fair decks. Something similar to the anti-counterspell Trap cards or the count be countered cycle. And the response was it would make TS/IoK unplayable and I do not believe that is true at all.
I disagree with your critique of MM against threats, I actually agree with WotC that it would be very good against fast aggro decks looking to apply threats on T1 and would slow the format down a good bit(1-2 turns possibly more).
This kind of attitude is why I think that WotC will never print a FoW option in Modern magic design, we have 2 in the card pool one is practically unplayable the other is so good it has never seen legal play. I have a feeling that if WotC does manage to print a playable modern level card that wrestles the BGx monopoly on fair decks it will be banned for making BGx decks slightly less than great because players will complain and you squeaky wheel.
Do you think that UU draw two , at instant speed would be to strong?
Don't we have several cards in white/green already that have anti discard clauses on them?
Probe is to good in legacy/vintage because free cantrips in those formats is way more profound of a impact.
In modern MM was packaged with JtmS and SFM as being bad and JtmS was by far the one they thought was the most risky.
2 the elephant and the baloth, those are very narrow and more often useless unless they are the only cards in hand. Could we get them in colors not associated to BGx decks? its like BGx cards are the only cards that get pushes for playable cards.