I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I believe on power level gsz is fine for modern. I also thinks It helps games play out better. It helps bad green midrange decks like big zoo. Though it could potentially break elves down the line but you could say the same for a lot of cards currently in modern.
I mean currently they have done decent at printing an answer in Hour of Devastation. solemnity is a step int he right direction for answers and with the reintroduction of core sets I feel we should be getting more answers or reprinted answers from past sets. At this point I have hope that wizards will follow their word on helping with the lack of answers so only time can tell.
I disagree. This is more of a combo-enabler than an "answer." What exactly does it "answer"? The now-totally-irrelevant Infect?
Wizards has a long way to go before we can reliably believe they are willing or capable of printing reasonable answer cards.
It is a little unrealistic to expect them to print a answer in a upcoming set for a issue that is currently relevant to the Meta. While Solemnity does help with a deck that is currently irrelevant, the card itself was likely designed a year to a two years ago. I doubt it was designed with anymore purpose than hosing the current Standard Energy decks and that any infect hate was simply a happy coincidence like with Fatal Push.
Its probably also unrealistic to conflate Standard playable answers with Modern playable ones. They will likely print more answers to threats in Standard but that doesn't mean anything in regards to breaking the trend of Standard level answers not being good/efficient enough for Modern. I don't doubt WotC will print more answers for Standard but main deck worthy answers that are Modern playable will probably still be very sparse and we are more likely to get some SB options for the already strained SB configurations we have now.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
I mean currently they have done decent at printing an answer in Hour of Devastation. solemnity is a step int he right direction for answers and with the reintroduction of core sets I feel we should be getting more answers or reprinted answers from past sets. At this point I have hope that wizards will follow their word on helping with the lack of answers so only time can tell.
I disagree. This is more of a combo-enabler than an "answer." What exactly does it "answer"? The now-totally-irrelevant Infect?
Wizards has a long way to go before we can reliably believe they are willing or capable of printing reasonable answer cards.
It is a little unrealistic to expect them to print a answer in a upcoming set for a issue that is currently relevant to the Meta. While Solemnity does help with a deck that is currently irrelevant, the card itself was likely designed a year to a two years ago. I doubt it was designed with anymore purpose than hosing the current Standard Energy decks and that any infect hate was simply a happy coincidence like with Fatal Push.
Its probably also unrealistic to conflate Standard playable answers with Modern playable ones. They will likely print more answers to threats in Standard but that doesn't mean anything in regards to breaking the trend of Standard level answers not being good/efficient enough for Modern. I don't doubt WotC will print more answers for Standard but main deck worthy answers that are Modern playable will probably still be very sparse and we are more likely to get some SB options for the already strained SB configurations we have now.
Without the actual quote, it's tough to analyze exactly what he meant. I've been looking for it and have not been able to find it. I think it was on either an old tweet or on his Blogatog. Either way, I remember he very candidly mentions how threats have been outpacing answers and that the ramp up of better answers begins with Hour. If he only means Standard answers, then we have very little to look forward to in terms of Modern playable answers moving forward. And if he thinks something like Solemnity is an "answer" then we have bigger problems at hand. I'll keep looking for that quote in the meantime.
I want more data! WotC, give us full MTGO 5-0 data!
Seriously, bans are dangerously unpredictable if the player base has no idea what the metagame is like. It pisses people off if they can't understand why a ban happened. It's also more likely for an unclear metagame to cause players who hit a streak of bad luck to quit the game.
If it accelerates ban list decisions, IMO, that is actually a good thing, as I'd rather not have overpowered or meta damaging cards and decks stick around in the meta as 'silent killers' that unfairly beat you.
If the game is so bad that you'd get endless strings of bans building off each-other if they revealed the data, then they need to change policy about how the game is handled and cards enter modern so they can fix the issue properly.
Settle the wreckage is a good example of an answer getting powerful. I think there plenty of cards that can come off the ban list if we are thinking gsz is ok.
How do people feel about the idea of adding 7th edition to Modern? It would add Counterspell proper, but most of the rest of the cards at a quick glance already seem to be in the format. I don't know the set well, did I overlook something that would be too stupidly powerful? Any other cards that could really shake up the format?
Considering that the 8th and the 9th edition include some highly problematic cards and that Modern would be better off without cards like Choke, Blood Moon(that's dubious), Tronlands, Flashfires, Ensnaring Bridge and stuff, no.
We need modern,up-to-date prints/answers.
Okay, Flashfire??? But as I was saying, most of the cards are already in Modern, and most of the rest seem to be draft fodder. And those cards are all debatable, just saying. We do need new cards printed, but Counterspell would do a lot of good. My post was asking specifically if the set had any NEW red flags.
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I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
Why do you not think it's a valid argument? If your argument against it is that it makes decks too consistent how do you feel about grixis death shadow, it is the most consistent deck in modern and plays 12 cantrips. Modern has changed so much since the days of counter cat and it has become much more powerful. If eldrazi tron is going to be one of the most popular decks in the format it's hard to see green sun zenith doing much harm. It's not even a lock to be played in the company decks as it's another non creature spell and it's arguably worse than chord in those decks
I mean currently they have done decent at printing an answer in Hour of Devastation. solemnity is a step int he right direction for answers and with the reintroduction of core sets I feel we should be getting more answers or reprinted answers from past sets. At this point I have hope that wizards will follow their word on helping with the lack of answers so only time can tell.
I disagree. This is more of a combo-enabler than an "answer." What exactly does it "answer"? The now-totally-irrelevant Infect?
Wizards has a long way to go before we can reliably believe they are willing or capable of printing reasonable answer cards.
It is a little unrealistic to expect them to print a answer in a upcoming set for a issue that is currently relevant to the Meta. While Solemnity does help with a deck that is currently irrelevant, the card itself was likely designed a year to a two years ago. I doubt it was designed with anymore purpose than hosing the current Standard Energy decks and that any infect hate was simply a happy coincidence like with Fatal Push.
Its probably also unrealistic to conflate Standard playable answers with Modern playable ones. They will likely print more answers to threats in Standard but that doesn't mean anything in regards to breaking the trend of Standard level answers not being good/efficient enough for Modern. I don't doubt WotC will print more answers for Standard but main deck worthy answers that are Modern playable will probably still be very sparse and we are more likely to get some SB options for the already strained SB configurations we have now.
Without the actual quote, it's tough to analyze exactly what he meant. I've been looking for it and have not been able to find it. I think it was on either an old tweet or on his Blogatog. Either way, I remember he very candidly mentions how threats have been outpacing answers and that the ramp up of better answers begins with Hour. If he only means Standard answers, then we have very little to look forward to in terms of Modern playable answers moving forward. And if he thinks something like Solemnity is an "answer" then we have bigger problems at hand. I'll keep looking for that quote in the meantime.
Well we know for a fact that R&D designs for Standard and Limited first and foremost. Fatal Push was not designed for Modern, it was designed for standard and it was recognized that it would be very good in larger non-rotating formats but that isn't why it was designed. I really do think that the printing of that card while great for the format has also kind of made many of us collectively forget how rare it actually is to get main deck playable non-creature spells for modern, we don't get directly injected stuff like Legacy does and more often we get things like like Kcommand, or the modal spells which are not fantastic answers as much as very flexible options.
They did discuss how threats out paced answers but that was very specifically a conversation about standard and how the rash of recent bannings in standard was due to the lack of answers for the actual threats that they developed; much of the criticism from high profile players was that something like Pithing Needle or Oblivion Ring would have prevented most of the bannings which obviously if reprinted wouldn't have added anything new or useful respectively to the Modern format.
I am hopeful that the return of the core set will be a better outlet for more consistent potential for Modern playable answers and generally better non-creature spells. IMO block sets will still suffer from the same issues that keep most of the cards in them somewhat useless in modern i.e. that they are designed to be connected to set mechanics/themes, which core sets do not have to do.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
Why do you not think it's a valid argument? If your argument against it is that it makes decks too consistent how do you feel about grixis death shadow, it is the most consistent deck in modern and plays 12 cantrips. Modern has changed so much since the days of counter cat and it has become much more powerful. If eldrazi tron is going to be one of the most popular decks in the format it's hard to see green sun zenith doing much harm. It's not even a lock to be played in the company decks as it's another non creature spell and it's arguably worse than chord in those decks
Honestly, the issue with your initial argument is that you named a bunch of strong plays and reduced them to being "powerful plays" as an argument to bring GSZ back, but most of the plays you mentioned are very different from what GSZ brings to the table. At that point, you're just comparing apples to oranges; we can't agree or disagree that T3 Karn >= GSZ because there's no way to meaningfully compare them. The closest comparison you've brought up is the consistency of Grixis Death's Shadow decks, but a lot of that consistency lies in the redundancy of those cantrips. At the end of the day, being able to tutor exactly what you want is inherently much more powerful than what Serum Visions can bring to the table, so I'm not a huge fan of the "This deck is consistent because of 12 cantrips, so it's OK to unban something inherently more powerful than cantrips" argument either.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Just playing Devil's advocate for a bit, Chord does have the benefit of searching any creature while GSZ can only grab Green creatures, so at the very least it's not an auto-replace in Kiki-Chord, one of the few well-known Chord decks. It also can't search Vizier in Abzan CoCo, though that being said, the fact that it's able to search for either Devoted Druid or Recruiter while also enabling other plays such as searching for a T1 Dryad Arbor or T2 mana dork if they need acceleration is more than enough for me to be extremely wary of it being unbanned.
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Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
Yeah Green Sun's Zenith would be a sweet card to have back. Like Chord and Company it's a one-shot effect (although shuffles itself back in for later use).
Elves would play it for sure, as well as decks like Knight/Coralhelm combo.
As for the Abzan Company/ Counters company decks, I believe Chord/Coco are still better options because they both can grab a Vizier while Zenith cannot.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
Why do you not think it's a valid argument? If your argument against it is that it makes decks too consistent how do you feel about grixis death shadow, it is the most consistent deck in modern and plays 12 cantrips. Modern has changed so much since the days of counter cat and it has become much more powerful. If eldrazi tron is going to be one of the most popular decks in the format it's hard to see green sun zenith doing much harm. It's not even a lock to be played in the company decks as it's another non creature spell and it's arguably worse than chord in those decks
Honestly, the issue with your initial argument is that you named a bunch of strong plays and reduced them to being "powerful plays" as an argument to bring GSZ back, but most of the plays you mentioned are very different from what GSZ brings to the table. At that point, you're just comparing apples to oranges; we can't agree or disagree that T3 Karn >= GSZ because there's no way to meaningfully compare them. The closest comparison you've brought up is the consistency of Grixis Death's Shadow decks, but a lot of that consistency lies in the redundancy of those cantrips. At the end of the day, being able to tutor exactly what you want is inherently much more powerful than what Serum Visions can bring to the table, so I'm not a huge fan of the "This deck is consistent because of 12 cantrips, so it's OK to unban something inherently more powerful than cantrips" argument either.
I haven't seen a good argument for a GSZ unban ever, but FoodChainGoblins is probably right. I think it would see play in Elves for sure, and it would create some new archetypes, such as the aforementioned GW Midrange deck. The card opens up a lot of possibilities, and that's what I want to see in an unban.
Just playing Devil's advocate for a bit, Chord does have the benefit of searching any creature while GSZ can only grab Green creatures, so at the very least it's not an auto-replace in Kiki-Chord, one of the few well-known Chord decks. It also can't search Vizier in Abzan CoCo, though that being said, the fact that it's able to search for either Devoted Druid or Recruiter while also enabling other plays such as searching for a T1 Dryad Arbor or T2 mana dork if they need acceleration is more than enough for me to be extremely wary of it being unbanned.
I think it's pretty clear we just don't agree on it's inherent power level. In your mind what happens if gsz gets unbanned in current modern. I have a hard time seeing it being too good with eldrazi tron being so heavily played and it just crushes most green creature decks
I really like that gsz would allow options to play more types of green decks that are not also black decks with discard as glue. You could see g based mid-range potentially that beats combo by finding hate and control by going bigger. I think that's cool option to have.
Honestly think gsz could come off with no ill effects except more deck types. Same as I feel about sfm really. Anything to allow more decks to play different styles of mid-range that isn't discard based.
I'd like to bring forth discussion as to possible cards that could be lifted from the banned list, since it seems nearly next to nothing will be added in the next ban announcement.
I wish I could find the original quote... I think it was from MaRo. If this is the kind of stuff they mean when they say "answers" I think we'll have a deeply depressing and long wait for relevant Modern answers.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
Why do you not think it's a valid argument? If your argument against it is that it makes decks too consistent how do you feel about grixis death shadow, it is the most consistent deck in modern and plays 12 cantrips. Modern has changed so much since the days of counter cat and it has become much more powerful. If eldrazi tron is going to be one of the most popular decks in the format it's hard to see green sun zenith doing much harm. It's not even a lock to be played in the company decks as it's another non creature spell and it's arguably worse than chord in those decks
At what point does the "x, y, and z are broken so unban broken card A" end? you just create a situation in which you cannot really justify anything being banned because after all in might be busted but x, y, and z will still be busted and busted card A is now removed so what justification could their be for busted card B, C, D, E etc... being banned? This is a classic reductio ad absurdum argument unless at some point you request special pleading in which you place demand we give GSZ a specific exemption for consideration which I don't think it deserves. Not every card is banned for it being individually broken, TC by itself isn't broken it is the types of games that it facilitated that are broken, same with the cheap ramp, not fundamentally broken on its own, T1 get 2 red for 1 card isn't broken it is the types of out comes it facilitates in specific decks that broken, if all we did with it was cheat out a 2 drop on 1 etc... it would be fine since that is just a recipe for 2 for 1ing yourself.
I didn't say my argument was that it made decks to consistent I said that his is the reasoning that WotC gave. "On turn one, this can give the acceleration of a Llanowar Elves by getting a Dryad Arbor. On later turns, it can get a large creature or a one-of "toolbox" creature such as Gaddock Teeg. While this is interesting, it is also too efficient. If one intends to build a deck that has turn-one accelerants, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more access to utility green creatures, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more reliably get a large green creature, such as a Primeval Titan, onto the battlefield, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. However, this ends up with fewer different decks being played in practice, as Green Sun's Zenith is such a good choice that there are fewer green decks that do anything else. The DCI hopes that banning Green Sun's Zenith increases diversity among Modern green decks."(http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/explanation-september-2011-br-changes-2011-09-20)
I don't know why your pointing to counter-cat as though it was ever a consistent T1 deck that was a hallmark of the format, just a weird deck to point to as though it was the deck par excellence. I don't agree that GDS is the most consistent deck, I play the deck and one of the most consistent ways to lose a game is to have your first threat killed and never draw into a second, DSJund is far more consistent since it can actually directly search up a threat it is just not favored in the mirror which is why it fell out of of favor and Grixis still suffers from the same problems Grixis aggro-control decks based around the delve creatures have always had sometimes you just spin your wheels and don't ever hit one of your 8 major threats.
I'd like to bring forth discussion as to possible cards that could be lifted from the banned list, since it seems nearly next to nothing will be added in the next ban announcement.
Bbe: the easiest unban. Arguably shouldn't have been banned in the first place. The body isn't as relevant as it was in 2013 and the decks that would consider playing it aren't doing great.
Jace: stays banned
personally on power level I think it is fine but I'm open to the idea that I could be flat out wrong. U/w control is proving to be a actual deck in the meta. Then you have financial aspect aide of things
Sfm: cautiously optimistic unban. Without jitte the best card you can get for most situations is batterskull and I am of the opinion that a turn 3 tutored up batterskull is not too powerful for modern especially when you compare it to what other decks are doing. It would help white decks like death and taxes out. It is possible that it makes junk a midrange killing machine
Gsz: unban. The only issue I can see with green sun zenith is pushing elves too much but even then elves can be hated out fairly easily. It would help non combo green creature decks out the most and I believe they need help. Its important to note that it would be competing for non creature slots in coco decks and in coco decks chord might just be better as it finds all creatures. As mention before in this thread with the amount of removal being played in modern tutoring up a mana dork or dryad arbor isn't trivial and you can be punished. Am I crazy for thinking that it shuffling back into your library is more of a downside as these decks often play eternal witness
I'd like to bring forth discussion as to possible cards that could be lifted from the banned list, since it seems nearly next to nothing will be added in the next ban announcement.
Bloodbraid Elf is a somewhat realistic unban with traditional Jund being on the downswing. My only concern here is that BBE in modern undercuts one of BGx's major weaknesses (it's soft to decks that generate a lot of 2 for 1s since it's 1 for 1s will eventually leave them out of gas), which could be problematic if the meta shifts to make traditional Jund good again.
Control is 'fine' in modern right now, not great, but not bad. Jace also doesn't solve any of control's problems, or the problems in moderns metagame, since it is good against other fair decks (which control is already good against), and not great against unfair decks. Basically, a Jace unban will push the format into Ux Jace decks vs hyper linear decks, since Jace is just so much more powerful than pretty much any individual card in modern.
SFM is risky right now. I honestly go back and forth on her being safe for modern or not. I think that right now she's fine, but barely so, and the risks of running her outweight the benefits.
I'm strongly against GSZ coming off the list, and think it's more likely that Traverse or Chord one day end up banned than that GSZ comes unbanned. It's a card that is good every single turn of the game in the fair decks that run it, and it makes any green based creature combo deck instantly better. The potential benefits to fair green decks are outweighed by the risks of making some creature combo deck too good.
So to summarize:
BBE is a maybe
SFM is a maybe
Jace TMS is a no
GSZ is a no
You guys are nuts, GSZ is way too powerful and consistent, it's copies 5 through 8 of every creature in your deck, and at a minimum a 5 of in your deck
We already have a ton of people *****ing about black being "the best", it would just facilitate more crying about golgari colors
GSZ is a poorly designed card, I'm adamantly against that unban, the card would be stuffed into nearly every single green deck
WOTC hates consistentcy, you guys are nuts to think they'd allow it
Sounds like people are bored from a diverse meta to be discussing a GSZ unban
I don't think WOTC is interested in making green decks stronger considering how much well it's done in modern.
I'm not even sure they realistically unban anything this announcement, the only realistic looking one is BBE, and WOTC still seems terrified of that possibility.
I don't think BBE would cause issues, but I also don't see Wizards wanting to unban her. BBE realistically improves Jund and only Jund, which doesn't really advance Wizards' primary goal for Modern: diversity. A BBE unban just makes Jund the, likely, best BGx deck, cutting down Abzan share and shifting it to Jund. BBE also probably pulls Jund ahead of stuff like BW Pox and Mardu, which is a net diversity loss.
Again, I'm not saying BBE is too strong. I'm just saying that Wizards is pretty consistent with enshrining diversity before all else, and a BBE unban doesn't at its face seem to increase that diversity. It also does absolutely nothing for color diversity, which they explicitly mentioned in the last update.
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Hasn't the argument against GSZ always been that it would just slot into Jund/Junk, thereby making two Tier 1 decks far more consistent and powerful?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I have no opinion on GSZ either way.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Spirits
It is a little unrealistic to expect them to print a answer in a upcoming set for a issue that is currently relevant to the Meta. While Solemnity does help with a deck that is currently irrelevant, the card itself was likely designed a year to a two years ago. I doubt it was designed with anymore purpose than hosing the current Standard Energy decks and that any infect hate was simply a happy coincidence like with Fatal Push.
Its probably also unrealistic to conflate Standard playable answers with Modern playable ones. They will likely print more answers to threats in Standard but that doesn't mean anything in regards to breaking the trend of Standard level answers not being good/efficient enough for Modern. I don't doubt WotC will print more answers for Standard but main deck worthy answers that are Modern playable will probably still be very sparse and we are more likely to get some SB options for the already strained SB configurations we have now.
I'm pretty sure the argument against GSZ is that it is functionally copies 5-8 of any given green creature in your deck and its live every turn of the game. Essentially just way to good at what it does. If it didn't shuffle back into your deck or if it cost xGG it wouldn't be busted but at its current cost its a pretty clear example of poor design.
Is gsz any more broken than turn 3 karn, turn 3 or 4 storm kills, mox opal, eldrazi temple or anything else currently in modern. It's also not like the green creature decks are good at the moment
Without the actual quote, it's tough to analyze exactly what he meant. I've been looking for it and have not been able to find it. I think it was on either an old tweet or on his Blogatog. Either way, I remember he very candidly mentions how threats have been outpacing answers and that the ramp up of better answers begins with Hour. If he only means Standard answers, then we have very little to look forward to in terms of Modern playable answers moving forward. And if he thinks something like Solemnity is an "answer" then we have bigger problems at hand. I'll keep looking for that quote in the meantime.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Seriously, bans are dangerously unpredictable if the player base has no idea what the metagame is like. It pisses people off if they can't understand why a ban happened. It's also more likely for an unclear metagame to cause players who hit a streak of bad luck to quit the game.
If it accelerates ban list decisions, IMO, that is actually a good thing, as I'd rather not have overpowered or meta damaging cards and decks stick around in the meta as 'silent killers' that unfairly beat you.
If the game is so bad that you'd get endless strings of bans building off each-other if they revealed the data, then they need to change policy about how the game is handled and cards enter modern so they can fix the issue properly.
Okay, Flashfire??? But as I was saying, most of the cards are already in Modern, and most of the rest seem to be draft fodder. And those cards are all debatable, just saying. We do need new cards printed, but Counterspell would do a lot of good. My post was asking specifically if the set had any NEW red flags.
First off I don't think the argument of X,Y, and Z are broken hence we should unban known broken card A is a valid argument. Second I think its more banned for the same kind of reasons that Ponder and Preordained are banned it makes the decks it is played in to consistent. It seems that people are quick to forget just how powerful a card like GSZ, I would think that Green decks would need to be in terrible shape for prolonged period before even considering unbanninga card such as GSZ after all it wasn't but a few weeks back that CoCo decks where sitting at T1 and we don't have any real expectations for what the long term trends in the meta-game will look like and it could just be that dropping out of T1 to T2 and back again might be the new norm for such decks.
Why do you not think it's a valid argument? If your argument against it is that it makes decks too consistent how do you feel about grixis death shadow, it is the most consistent deck in modern and plays 12 cantrips. Modern has changed so much since the days of counter cat and it has become much more powerful. If eldrazi tron is going to be one of the most popular decks in the format it's hard to see green sun zenith doing much harm. It's not even a lock to be played in the company decks as it's another non creature spell and it's arguably worse than chord in those decks
Well we know for a fact that R&D designs for Standard and Limited first and foremost. Fatal Push was not designed for Modern, it was designed for standard and it was recognized that it would be very good in larger non-rotating formats but that isn't why it was designed. I really do think that the printing of that card while great for the format has also kind of made many of us collectively forget how rare it actually is to get main deck playable non-creature spells for modern, we don't get directly injected stuff like Legacy does and more often we get things like like Kcommand, or the modal spells which are not fantastic answers as much as very flexible options.
They did discuss how threats out paced answers but that was very specifically a conversation about standard and how the rash of recent bannings in standard was due to the lack of answers for the actual threats that they developed; much of the criticism from high profile players was that something like Pithing Needle or Oblivion Ring would have prevented most of the bannings which obviously if reprinted wouldn't have added anything new or useful respectively to the Modern format.
I am hopeful that the return of the core set will be a better outlet for more consistent potential for Modern playable answers and generally better non-creature spells. IMO block sets will still suffer from the same issues that keep most of the cards in them somewhat useless in modern i.e. that they are designed to be connected to set mechanics/themes, which core sets do not have to do.
Yeah, if Chord of Calling sees play, Green Sun's Zenith would definitely see play.
Just playing Devil's advocate for a bit, Chord does have the benefit of searching any creature while GSZ can only grab Green creatures, so at the very least it's not an auto-replace in Kiki-Chord, one of the few well-known Chord decks. It also can't search Vizier in Abzan CoCo, though that being said, the fact that it's able to search for either Devoted Druid or Recruiter while also enabling other plays such as searching for a T1 Dryad Arbor or T2 mana dork if they need acceleration is more than enough for me to be extremely wary of it being unbanned.
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
Elves would play it for sure, as well as decks like Knight/Coralhelm combo.
As for the Abzan Company/ Counters company decks, I believe Chord/Coco are still better options because they both can grab a Vizier while Zenith cannot.
I think it's pretty clear we just don't agree on it's inherent power level. In your mind what happens if gsz gets unbanned in current modern. I have a hard time seeing it being too good with eldrazi tron being so heavily played and it just crushes most green creature decks
Honestly think gsz could come off with no ill effects except more deck types. Same as I feel about sfm really. Anything to allow more decks to play different styles of mid-range that isn't discard based.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Bloodbraid Elf do midrange and aggro decks need this tool back?
Jace, The Mind Sculptor Is control good enough without this?
Stoneforge Mystic Is white still a lacking color?
Green Sun's Zenith Does green need to fragment and diverse itself more?
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
At what point does the "x, y, and z are broken so unban broken card A" end? you just create a situation in which you cannot really justify anything being banned because after all in might be busted but x, y, and z will still be busted and busted card A is now removed so what justification could their be for busted card B, C, D, E etc... being banned? This is a classic reductio ad absurdum argument unless at some point you request special pleading in which you place demand we give GSZ a specific exemption for consideration which I don't think it deserves. Not every card is banned for it being individually broken, TC by itself isn't broken it is the types of games that it facilitated that are broken, same with the cheap ramp, not fundamentally broken on its own, T1 get 2 red for 1 card isn't broken it is the types of out comes it facilitates in specific decks that broken, if all we did with it was cheat out a 2 drop on 1 etc... it would be fine since that is just a recipe for 2 for 1ing yourself.
I didn't say my argument was that it made decks to consistent I said that his is the reasoning that WotC gave. "On turn one, this can give the acceleration of a Llanowar Elves by getting a Dryad Arbor. On later turns, it can get a large creature or a one-of "toolbox" creature such as Gaddock Teeg. While this is interesting, it is also too efficient. If one intends to build a deck that has turn-one accelerants, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more access to utility green creatures, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more reliably get a large green creature, such as a Primeval Titan, onto the battlefield, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. However, this ends up with fewer different decks being played in practice, as Green Sun's Zenith is such a good choice that there are fewer green decks that do anything else. The DCI hopes that banning Green Sun's Zenith increases diversity among Modern green decks."(http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/explanation-september-2011-br-changes-2011-09-20)
I don't know why your pointing to counter-cat as though it was ever a consistent T1 deck that was a hallmark of the format, just a weird deck to point to as though it was the deck par excellence. I don't agree that GDS is the most consistent deck, I play the deck and one of the most consistent ways to lose a game is to have your first threat killed and never draw into a second, DSJund is far more consistent since it can actually directly search up a threat it is just not favored in the mirror which is why it fell out of of favor and Grixis still suffers from the same problems Grixis aggro-control decks based around the delve creatures have always had sometimes you just spin your wheels and don't ever hit one of your 8 major threats.
Bbe: the easiest unban. Arguably shouldn't have been banned in the first place. The body isn't as relevant as it was in 2013 and the decks that would consider playing it aren't doing great.
Jace: stays banned
personally on power level I think it is fine but I'm open to the idea that I could be flat out wrong. U/w control is proving to be a actual deck in the meta. Then you have financial aspect aide of things
Sfm: cautiously optimistic unban. Without jitte the best card you can get for most situations is batterskull and I am of the opinion that a turn 3 tutored up batterskull is not too powerful for modern especially when you compare it to what other decks are doing. It would help white decks like death and taxes out. It is possible that it makes junk a midrange killing machine
Gsz: unban. The only issue I can see with green sun zenith is pushing elves too much but even then elves can be hated out fairly easily. It would help non combo green creature decks out the most and I believe they need help. Its important to note that it would be competing for non creature slots in coco decks and in coco decks chord might just be better as it finds all creatures. As mention before in this thread with the amount of removal being played in modern tutoring up a mana dork or dryad arbor isn't trivial and you can be punished. Am I crazy for thinking that it shuffling back into your library is more of a downside as these decks often play eternal witness
Bloodbraid Elf is a somewhat realistic unban with traditional Jund being on the downswing. My only concern here is that BBE in modern undercuts one of BGx's major weaknesses (it's soft to decks that generate a lot of 2 for 1s since it's 1 for 1s will eventually leave them out of gas), which could be problematic if the meta shifts to make traditional Jund good again.
Control is 'fine' in modern right now, not great, but not bad. Jace also doesn't solve any of control's problems, or the problems in moderns metagame, since it is good against other fair decks (which control is already good against), and not great against unfair decks. Basically, a Jace unban will push the format into Ux Jace decks vs hyper linear decks, since Jace is just so much more powerful than pretty much any individual card in modern.
SFM is risky right now. I honestly go back and forth on her being safe for modern or not. I think that right now she's fine, but barely so, and the risks of running her outweight the benefits.
I'm strongly against GSZ coming off the list, and think it's more likely that Traverse or Chord one day end up banned than that GSZ comes unbanned. It's a card that is good every single turn of the game in the fair decks that run it, and it makes any green based creature combo deck instantly better. The potential benefits to fair green decks are outweighed by the risks of making some creature combo deck too good.
So to summarize:
BBE is a maybe
SFM is a maybe
Jace TMS is a no
GSZ is a no
We already have a ton of people *****ing about black being "the best", it would just facilitate more crying about golgari colors
GSZ is a poorly designed card, I'm adamantly against that unban, the card would be stuffed into nearly every single green deck
WOTC hates consistentcy, you guys are nuts to think they'd allow it
Sounds like people are bored from a diverse meta to be discussing a GSZ unban
I don't think WOTC is interested in making green decks stronger considering how much well it's done in modern.
I'm not even sure they realistically unban anything this announcement, the only realistic looking one is BBE, and WOTC still seems terrified of that possibility.
Again, I'm not saying BBE is too strong. I'm just saying that Wizards is pretty consistent with enshrining diversity before all else, and a BBE unban doesn't at its face seem to increase that diversity. It also does absolutely nothing for color diversity, which they explicitly mentioned in the last update.