However, Maro recently tweeted something that everyone should keep in mind. That concept being that wizards R&D don't want to be shackled to the past. In effect, they are keeping some cards on the ban list because they put limitations on what R&D can do. It's like asking them to print less humans when they are the most prolific race in the multiverse just to keep humans from being too good.
Link for this?
Yeah, let me get it. It actually came up on the twitter stuff when people were discussing humans a while back.
Starting to see a theme here? Basically, they aren't going to bend their design to fit modern or legacy. They intend to just ban things as they get broken by new cards. Hence why I'm heading to legacy land.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Hollow One is fine...and so is SFM, and Twin. If I have to put up with absolutely filthy draws, then people should have to put up with Turn 4 Twin or a Batterskull swinging in.
EDIT: Dont mistake me as 'complaining' about Modern. I'm not. The issue is, Nature Turn 3 Tron? Thats garbage. Turn 1/2 with multiple Hollow Ones/Vengevines? garbage. Turn 2 Infect kill? Filth.
And I love it all, even if I absolutely hate Tron as a deck, I welcome its presence.
Simply give me back Twin.
I agree that SFM is fine, but I think that decks like Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, are good reasons as to why Twin should stay out of the meta right now. Twin on its own doesn't do anything broken, but it's very much a prepare for it or lose to it type of deck. That means Twin reentering the meta would just increase the sideboard lottery issue in the format.
So twin stays dead for other decks sins... seems fair.
Hollow One is fine...and so is SFM, and Twin. If I have to put up with absolutely filthy draws, then people should have to put up with Turn 4 Twin or a Batterskull swinging in.
EDIT: Dont mistake me as 'complaining' about Modern. I'm not. The issue is, Nature Turn 3 Tron? Thats garbage. Turn 1/2 with multiple Hollow Ones/Vengevines? garbage. Turn 2 Infect kill? Filth.
And I love it all, even if I absolutely hate Tron as a deck, I welcome its presence.
Simply give me back Twin.
I agree that SFM is fine, but I think that decks like Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, are good reasons as to why Twin should stay out of the meta right now. Twin on its own doesn't do anything broken, but it's very much a prepare for it or lose to it type of deck. That means Twin reentering the meta would just increase the sideboard lottery issue in the format.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
I don't think you remember when the typical sideboard package included cards like Rending Volley just for Twin, and when Spellskite was nearly the first $100 Modern rare, because it was a must run answer to Twin in every single deck.
Twin is/was good because it's strong against removal spells. Bolt misses Exarch, and with Remand, Fatal Push will usually miss it as well.
It required a lot of specialized disruption to beat.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
I don't think you remember when the typical sideboard package included cards like Rending Volley just for Twin, and when Spellskite was nearly the first $100 Modern rare, because it was a must run answer to Twin in every single deck.
Twin is/was good because it's strong against removal spells. Bolt misses Exarch, and with Remand, Fatal Push will usually miss it as well.
It required a lot of specialized disruption to beat.
And now there are more answers like push/stubborn denial/faster decks.... running around. You kinda make it seem like because of other decks only gy combo decks should be allowed in modern so sideboards can hit them all in one set of options.
No matter how people want to cut it, modern is stable for now despite people not necessarily getting their favorite deck. I'm more so bothered by the blogatog posts from Maro because I thought we were past this whole "we are designing for standard and not giving a crap about modern" BFZ / OGW days. I agree with him fundamentally on humans being impossible to avoid, but the way he is phrasing things makes me think that they have no qualms about running head first into stuff that potentially breaks modern.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Of course they don’t. Modern isn’t their priority and like I said sooner rather than later there will be a new non rotating format that I’m sure they will actually put time and effort into. It won’t have fetches and some of the main problematic things the current non rotating formats do. They will just do reprints here and there to make money off the format and that is all that could be expected of them.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
I don't think you remember when the typical sideboard package included cards like Rending Volley just for Twin, and when Spellskite was nearly the first $100 Modern rare, because it was a must run answer to Twin in every single deck.
Twin is/was good because it's strong against removal spells. Bolt misses Exarch, and with Remand, Fatal Push will usually miss it as well.
It required a lot of specialized disruption to beat.
And now there are more answers like push/stubborn denial/faster decks.... running around. You kinda make it seem like because of other decks only gy combo decks should be allowed in modern so sideboards can hit them all in one set of options.
Twin wasn't banned on power level. It was banned due to the fact that it lead to way too many feel bad moments and awful play patterns. It was not healthy for the format.
Sam Black made a cool statement that I think I can agree with:"The Golden Age of Modern was ushered in with the banning of Twin". The format is incredibly diverse and your garbage pile is playable because Twin doesn't exist. I think that's cool.
I wanted Looting to go to be honest because nothing that card does promotes interesting games of magic and does way too much for so very little. But oh well.
I ask this because nearly every time any unban suggestion pops up, no matter what it is, it is commonly met with "we don't need to unban anything."
What does that mean?
If the format is good, do we unban? If the format is bad, do we unban? If the format is stale, do we unban? Historically, unbans have only ever transpired alongside a massively huge, format-altering ban. The only real exceptions are Jace and BBE which, while not accompanying a Modern ban, did happen immediately after the second wave of unprecedented Standard bannings (and coincided with a reprint of one of the main cards).
This is a decent question and we can draw on past Modern unbans to answer it. I won't cite other formats because those aren't Modern and may operate under a different set of rules.
Valakut: September 2012 before a PT, no proximate ban
Nacatl: February 2014 before a PT, DRS banned in same update
BB: February 2014 before a PT, DRS banned in same update
GGT: January 2015 before a PT, DT/TCC/Pod banned in same update
AV: April 2016 after a PT, Eye banned in same update
Sword: April 2016 after a PT, Eye banned in same update
JTMS: February 2018 after a PT, no proximate ban
BBE: February 2018 after a PT, no proximate ban
This is a small sample but I'm willing to tentatively draw some tentative conclusions from this dataset and based on the post-Twin uproar plus post-Twin articles from Wizards.
1. Wizards will probably not unban cards before PT in the future. This stopped in 2015 and Wizards appears to want to use PT as a format indicator before an unban, rather than use an unban to spice up a PT.
2. Wizards historically unbanned cards with bans, but both Valakut (old history) and JTMS/BBE (newer) show a new trend. I would expect this is based on how long the format has gone without significant changes, but can't be sure.
3. Wizards has never unbanned cards that go in top-tier decks. Period. Every single unban in this list was designed to help an archetype or strategy that was struggling or non-existent at the time of the unban.
Again, who knows how much we can glean from Wizards' history. But I'd rather start with these tentative conclusions from actual decisions rather than just play a guessing game. Unbans have always felt harder to predict than bans. Most bans were fairly predictable, as well as most "No Changes" updates.
I suppose there's some case one could make for Opal, even if it's not entirely supported by current data. I'll table that one. But SSG? This is a completely indefensible ban suggestion based on every known ban criteria and action Wizards has taken. Wizards does not ban cards simply because a group of players doesn't like their play experience (e.g. Moon leading to non-games or SSG being too fast in some random decks). I wish we could move away from these kind of suggestions and focus on some real questions, like Stirrings. I think if we look at 2018 GP/PT T8 decks, we will find only a single deck that used SSG and made T8 (Grishoalbrand). Literally 98.6% of the other decks didn't run it.
Starting to see a theme here? Basically, they aren't going to bend their design to fit modern or legacy. They intend to just ban things as they get broken by new cards. Hence why I'm heading to legacy land.
Interesting quotes but I don't think this is particularly accurate as we know Wizards is deliberately designing cards for Modern. Play Design has made this an explicit priority. True, their initial attempts at this had some mixed/minimal success, but they are trying and will get better. I also fail to see why this would push someone to Legacy instead of Modern.
Of course they don’t. Modern isn’t their priority and like I said sooner rather than later there will be a new non rotating format that I’m sure they will actually put time and effort into. It won’t have fetches and some of the main problematic things the current non rotating formats do. They will just do reprints here and there to make money off the format and that is all that could be expected of them.
Modern is hands-down the most popular constructed format by basically every metric we have access to. They also literally hired a Play Design member, Tom Ross, to be their Modern and non-rotating format guy, plus designed cards with Modern in mind. Why do people keep theorizing that Modern is on the out for some new post-Modern format? That would be one of the worst business decisions Wizards could make right now and as much as we love to bash Wizards, we can all probably agree it's very unlikely. It's far more likely they will just keep monetizing the success they have, not try to reinvent the wheel. Especially after the initial failures of Brawl and the horrible reception to Frontier after Hareruya pushed it. Modern is the way to go and it's here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Will this replacement happen one day? I mean, probably? I guess? But people repeating this prediction for ten years and then having it come true after a decade does not make it a good prediction.
No matter how people want to cut it, modern is stable for now despite people not necessarily getting their favorite deck. I'm more so bothered by the blogatog posts from Maro because I thought we were past this whole "we are designing for standard and not giving a crap about modern" BFZ / OGW days. I agree with him fundamentally on humans being impossible to avoid, but the way he is phrasing things makes me think that they have no qualms about running head first into stuff that potentially breaks modern.
Regarding humans: nobody has ever said "stop printing humans at all", just "stop making the low mana cost creatures that are obvious format staples all humans". No body bothers if the majority of the jank limited commons are all humans, it's the one in a set cards like Kitesail Freebooter or Direfleet Daredevil the ones that make everyone rolls their eyes since they could have been easily been turned to inconsequential types like Orc, Bat, devil or whatever. All humans they want save the two-drop chase rare of the set is all we ask.
About bans: damn, my Groves and Punishing Fires are still going to sit in my binder next to each other :sad. But well, so far the format is still good.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
This bolded section is inaccurate and dishonest. You are required to have discard, removal and countermagic in some combination to simply not lose the game turn 3 on the draw, or turn 4 on the play. Yet those requirements also do not guarantee a solid win% increase based on your opponents level of play.
Twin was never an "all-in" deck. It was a deck that simply threatened your ability to play Magic. Those requirements you posted, simply stop bad players from winning with Twin. We can't have a banned list based on sup-optimal gameplay.
So tired of hearing complaints about Hollow One...my deck barely ever places anymore, and I had to tune my version heavily to be playable in this meta. It takes plenty of skill, sequencing, and forethought on when to interact and when to go face to win with the deck. Sometimes, of course, you (essentially) just win on Turn 1 or 2.
But then, so does Grishoalbrand, and about as regularly, too.
I’ll only respond to the part about my post. Yes Maro said it is a matter of when not if a new non rotating format will occur. 1 guy to test modern/non rotating formats, cool looks like they are putting a lot of resources into their most popular format. Just because something is their most popular doesn’t make it a priority by any means. It just means that’s what the players like the best and that’s likely not a good thing for a company that makes money off of standard/limited. Not like they’re changing all their events to modern like scg did.
Arena is their new baby. They will have a format on it that is non rotating and it will transfer over to paper. Makes no sense not to.
Twin wasn't banned on power level. It was banned due to the fact that it lead to way too many feel bad moments and awful play patterns. It was not healthy for the format.
Thats a hilariously off base statement.
There are 2 reasons it was banned. One of which is official.
1. Too much Top 8's at the GP/PT level.
2. To shake up the format as it was a great deck at dealing with random garbage decks.
As to Twin increasing the sideboard lotto? No way. It would change the meta, it would shake up MAIN DECK configurations, it would demand interaction, and no, I would not shed a single tear for all the random jank that gets played these days. YOU STILL LOSE TO BLOOD MOON, JACE, REMAND AND SNAP BOLT. Its just a longer game now and you dont get to try again against someone else after turn 4.
You didnt beat Twin with sideboarding. You beat it by bringing out the other Tier 1 decks at the time.
As to Maro's quotes, those actually had me sighing in outright disgust. Humans will continue to be pumped up. Forever, it seems.
Man, so many posts I want to respond to in just this thread, I guess thats what I get for being out of the house tonight lol.
In the end, whatever. When is the next Pro Tour, as KTK seems to show, maybe we get a do nothing card then instead.
However, Maro recently tweeted something that everyone should keep in mind. That concept being that wizards R&D don't want to be shackled to the past. In effect, they are keeping some cards on the ban list because they put limitations on what R&D can do. It's like asking them to print less humans when they are the most prolific race in the multiverse just to keep humans from being too good.
Link for this?
Yeah, let me get it. It actually came up on the twitter stuff when people were discussing humans a while back.
Starting to see a theme here? Basically, they aren't going to bend their design to fit modern or legacy. They intend to just ban things as they get broken by new cards. Hence why I'm heading to legacy land.
I entered Legacy so I could play whatever I wanted without worries but WoTC is taking some action recently (I started playing Jund, then built Miracles and finally Grixis Delver), as you can imagine, the recent bans have crippled my decks which is exactly what I was trying to avoid so be careful when entering the format as that was something I was not expecting back then. The format has a great drawback that hasn't been solved in years and is making it more and more expensive everyday: duals are on the reserved list and are mandatory for 90% of the decks so you need a large investment to play so don't expect many new players joining you. Besides that, it's IMO the most fun and skill intensive format
So, as is not particularly surprising, when we have nothing else to talk about, we've defaulted back to Twin discussion.
Cheerio, I'll be over here having some Scotch and playing my Mardu deck.
Plenty of other things are being talked about here. Don’t just look for a reason to drink and try to validate it by picking little things you don’t want to deal with.
So, as is not particularly surprising, when we have nothing else to talk about, we've defaulted back to Twin discussion.
Cheerio, I'll be over here having some Scotch and playing my Mardu deck.
Plenty of other things are being talked about here. Don’t just look for a reason to drink and try to validate it by picking little things you don’t want to deal with.
You know it's a twin debate when unrelated humor becomes a point of contention. This is why uncle Tron drinks, kids.
Of course they don’t. Modern isn’t their priority and like I said sooner rather than later there will be a new non rotating format that I’m sure they will actually put time and effort into. It won’t have fetches and some of the main problematic things the current non rotating formats do. They will just do reprints here and there to make money off the format and that is all that could be expected of them.
Modern is hands-down the most popular constructed format by basically every metric we have access to. They also literally hired a Play Design member, Tom Ross, to be their Modern and non-rotating format guy, plus designed cards with Modern in mind. Why do people keep theorizing that Modern is on the out for some new post-Modern format? That would be one of the worst business decisions Wizards could make right now and as much as we love to bash Wizards, we can all probably agree it's very unlikely. It's far more likely they will just keep monetizing the success they have, not try to reinvent the wheel. Especially after the initial failures of Brawl and the horrible reception to Frontier after Hareruya pushed it. Modern is the way to go and it's here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Will this replacement happen one day? I mean, probably? I guess? But people repeating this prediction for ten years and then having it come true after a decade does not make it a good prediction.
I think Wiz is starting to realize/acknowledge Modern is the most popular format. The return of the Modern PT, the team PT featuring Modern and Legacy, the new play design member you mentioned, and most importantly the questions about Modern they asked on that survey recently, all indicate Wiz has figured it out. I remember this thread talking about how bad of a decision removing the Modern PT was all those years ago when it originally happened and now years later Wiz has realized. Standard being terrible these last fews has helped (how much is debatable, but I believe its been a big factor and that Wiz has lost many standard players forever)but as everyone said originally non standard formats are extremely popular. My guess is that Wiz didn't know how to correctly make money off non rotating formats so they tried to focus everything on the formats that did make money for them. Those formats floundered due to poor design while modern and other non standard formats have gained players and the products made for them have generally sold well. Now standard is still the primary format but modern is going to get more attention than its ever gotten before. Question is will Wiz figure out how to make money from modern and support it in ways that are positive: good reprints, balanced and needed new cards (if they go this route), and continued increase in events and coverage.
[quote from="idSurge »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/797415-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-20-08-2018?comment=21"][quote from="Colt47 »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/797415-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-20-08-2018?comment=17"]
Starting to see a theme here? Basically, they aren't going to bend their design to fit modern or legacy. They intend to just ban things as they get broken by new cards. Hence why I'm heading to legacy land.
I'm not sure what "Legacy land" looks like today, but when I played there 5 yars ago.. skill intensive indeed.. it's mandatory to have 4 pieces grave remove for Dredge, and maybe a Null Rod or two in the sideboard for all the Storm Combo. I also had 3 Perish for the elves and zoo players. However, Legacy land is having a slow death because of the Reserved list. Modern has problems too, but it's in much better shape than legacy. Modern is alive with plenty of decks and a large community.
I'm not sure what "Legacy land" looks like today, but when I played there 5 yars ago.. skill intensive indeed.. it's mandatory to have 4 pieces grave remove for Dredge, and maybe a Null Rod or two in the sideboard for all the Storm Combo. I also had 3 Perish for the elves and zoo players. However, Legacy land is having a slow death because of the Reserved list. Modern has problems too, but it's in much better shape than legacy. Modern is alive with plenty of decks and a large community.
Lots has changed in Legacy in the last 5 years. SDT, TRS, Probe, new cards, etc... Legacy today is dominated by fair decks. Storm has been almost completely removed from the meta, it's one of the most fringe decks. Things are dominated by Grixis Control (usually without Delvers), Miracles, and Death and Taxes. New decks on the scene have been of the fair variety like UB Shadow. Dredge isn't really hated out specifically, but is rather sparse. Show and Tell is the dominant combo deck, and the only one that could be considered Tier 1 though Lands does put up a lot of good showings. Of the top 10 decks, only 6 are Force of Will decks and "only" 7 are Brainstorm decks.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
I don't think you remember when the typical sideboard package included cards like Rending Volley just for Twin, and when Spellskite was nearly the first $100 Modern rare, because it was a must run answer to Twin in every single deck.
Twin is/was good because it's strong against removal spells. Bolt misses Exarch, and with Remand, Fatal Push will usually miss it as well.
It required a lot of specialized disruption to beat.
Grossly exaggerated and massively misrepresented. Not the least bit is the history of Spellskite, who has never been higher than $40, spent most of its life at or below $20, and was ironically only that high due to a buyout a few days before banning. But we live in a world where facts and reality no longer matter, and history is what we say it is, not what actually happened.
Ignoring the fact that other top decks at the time (Burn, Bogles, and especially Infect) were all great decks to side in Spellskite for, Infect was even running counter hate for Spellskite.
Harsh fact, most people who hate Twin, didnt even grind in that era.
Of course they don’t. Modern isn’t their priority and like I said sooner rather than later there will be a new non rotating format that I’m sure they will actually put time and effort into. It won’t have fetches and some of the main problematic things the current non rotating formats do. They will just do reprints here and there to make money off the format and that is all that could be expected of them.
Why would they do that? Maro doesn't want design of the past sets to impact the design choices of the future sets. The way the company deals with the old card problem is through things like commander and conspiracy. They already have a working solution.
Modern is a format that was wanted by players to escape the reserved list. Wizards granted it under the condition that only cards in standard could enter the format. They never planned a rotation or a retirement for modern and it is very unlikely they are going to do so.
For example, if they start a new format, where is the starting point? They have made as great many mistakes recently, so would people want to play a format dominated by the Scarab God, Red deck wins, and various UW control builds?
Not to mention a new non rotating format is a bit of an oxymoron. By supporting a new non rotating format it is basically a rotation of the old one in everything but name.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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They are obviously waiting for the results from these before banning / unbanning anything.
If Stirrings decks continue to overperform relative to other archetypes, we will likely see a banning in October.
Yeah, let me get it. It actually came up on the twitter stuff when people were discussing humans a while back.
First one of interest from Mark:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/177181094008/if-the-future-of-card-design-shouldnt-be-held
and another one...
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/177181267758/the-future-of-design-cant-be-held-hostage-to-the
Edit: Someone also asked this one as well...
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/177171835648/in-the-formats-where-these-cards-pile-up-though
Starting to see a theme here? Basically, they aren't going to bend their design to fit modern or legacy. They intend to just ban things as they get broken by new cards. Hence why I'm heading to legacy land.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So twin stays dead for other decks sins... seems fair.
To beat Bridgevine, Hollow One, and KCI, you need narrow, specific, artifact and graveyard hate. To beat Twin, you need creature removal, discard spells, or nearly any counterspell. If I had to deal with one over the other... I'd take the "regular creature needs to die" deck over "I need specific GY/artifact hate or I lose" deck any day. Never mind that most GY and artifact decks laughably scoff at cards like discard, counterspells, and creature removal due to their abuse of the GY to begin with.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I don't think you remember when the typical sideboard package included cards like Rending Volley just for Twin, and when Spellskite was nearly the first $100 Modern rare, because it was a must run answer to Twin in every single deck.
Twin is/was good because it's strong against removal spells. Bolt misses Exarch, and with Remand, Fatal Push will usually miss it as well.
It required a lot of specialized disruption to beat.
And now there are more answers like push/stubborn denial/faster decks.... running around. You kinda make it seem like because of other decks only gy combo decks should be allowed in modern so sideboards can hit them all in one set of options.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Twin wasn't banned on power level. It was banned due to the fact that it lead to way too many feel bad moments and awful play patterns. It was not healthy for the format.
Sam Black made a cool statement that I think I can agree with:"The Golden Age of Modern was ushered in with the banning of Twin". The format is incredibly diverse and your garbage pile is playable because Twin doesn't exist. I think that's cool.
I wanted Looting to go to be honest because nothing that card does promotes interesting games of magic and does way too much for so very little. But oh well.
This is a decent question and we can draw on past Modern unbans to answer it. I won't cite other formats because those aren't Modern and may operate under a different set of rules.
Valakut: September 2012 before a PT, no proximate ban
Nacatl: February 2014 before a PT, DRS banned in same update
BB: February 2014 before a PT, DRS banned in same update
GGT: January 2015 before a PT, DT/TCC/Pod banned in same update
AV: April 2016 after a PT, Eye banned in same update
Sword: April 2016 after a PT, Eye banned in same update
JTMS: February 2018 after a PT, no proximate ban
BBE: February 2018 after a PT, no proximate ban
This is a small sample but I'm willing to tentatively draw some tentative conclusions from this dataset and based on the post-Twin uproar plus post-Twin articles from Wizards.
1. Wizards will probably not unban cards before PT in the future. This stopped in 2015 and Wizards appears to want to use PT as a format indicator before an unban, rather than use an unban to spice up a PT.
2. Wizards historically unbanned cards with bans, but both Valakut (old history) and JTMS/BBE (newer) show a new trend. I would expect this is based on how long the format has gone without significant changes, but can't be sure.
3. Wizards has never unbanned cards that go in top-tier decks. Period. Every single unban in this list was designed to help an archetype or strategy that was struggling or non-existent at the time of the unban.
Again, who knows how much we can glean from Wizards' history. But I'd rather start with these tentative conclusions from actual decisions rather than just play a guessing game. Unbans have always felt harder to predict than bans. Most bans were fairly predictable, as well as most "No Changes" updates.
I suppose there's some case one could make for Opal, even if it's not entirely supported by current data. I'll table that one. But SSG? This is a completely indefensible ban suggestion based on every known ban criteria and action Wizards has taken. Wizards does not ban cards simply because a group of players doesn't like their play experience (e.g. Moon leading to non-games or SSG being too fast in some random decks). I wish we could move away from these kind of suggestions and focus on some real questions, like Stirrings. I think if we look at 2018 GP/PT T8 decks, we will find only a single deck that used SSG and made T8 (Grishoalbrand). Literally 98.6% of the other decks didn't run it.
Interesting quotes but I don't think this is particularly accurate as we know Wizards is deliberately designing cards for Modern. Play Design has made this an explicit priority. True, their initial attempts at this had some mixed/minimal success, but they are trying and will get better. I also fail to see why this would push someone to Legacy instead of Modern.
Modern is hands-down the most popular constructed format by basically every metric we have access to. They also literally hired a Play Design member, Tom Ross, to be their Modern and non-rotating format guy, plus designed cards with Modern in mind. Why do people keep theorizing that Modern is on the out for some new post-Modern format? That would be one of the worst business decisions Wizards could make right now and as much as we love to bash Wizards, we can all probably agree it's very unlikely. It's far more likely they will just keep monetizing the success they have, not try to reinvent the wheel. Especially after the initial failures of Brawl and the horrible reception to Frontier after Hareruya pushed it. Modern is the way to go and it's here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Will this replacement happen one day? I mean, probably? I guess? But people repeating this prediction for ten years and then having it come true after a decade does not make it a good prediction.
Regarding humans: nobody has ever said "stop printing humans at all", just "stop making the low mana cost creatures that are obvious format staples all humans". No body bothers if the majority of the jank limited commons are all humans, it's the one in a set cards like Kitesail Freebooter or Direfleet Daredevil the ones that make everyone rolls their eyes since they could have been easily been turned to inconsequential types like Orc, Bat, devil or whatever. All humans they want save the two-drop chase rare of the set is all we ask.
About bans: damn, my Groves and Punishing Fires are still going to sit in my binder next to each other :sad. But well, so far the format is still good.
This bolded section is inaccurate and dishonest. You are required to have discard, removal and countermagic in some combination to simply not lose the game turn 3 on the draw, or turn 4 on the play. Yet those requirements also do not guarantee a solid win% increase based on your opponents level of play.
Twin was never an "all-in" deck. It was a deck that simply threatened your ability to play Magic. Those requirements you posted, simply stop bad players from winning with Twin. We can't have a banned list based on sup-optimal gameplay.
But then, so does Grishoalbrand, and about as regularly, too.
Arena is their new baby. They will have a format on it that is non rotating and it will transfer over to paper. Makes no sense not to.
Thats a hilariously off base statement.
There are 2 reasons it was banned. One of which is official.
1. Too much Top 8's at the GP/PT level.
2. To shake up the format as it was a great deck at dealing with random garbage decks.
As to Twin increasing the sideboard lotto? No way. It would change the meta, it would shake up MAIN DECK configurations, it would demand interaction, and no, I would not shed a single tear for all the random jank that gets played these days. YOU STILL LOSE TO BLOOD MOON, JACE, REMAND AND SNAP BOLT. Its just a longer game now and you dont get to try again against someone else after turn 4.
You didnt beat Twin with sideboarding. You beat it by bringing out the other Tier 1 decks at the time.
As to Maro's quotes, those actually had me sighing in outright disgust. Humans will continue to be pumped up. Forever, it seems.
Man, so many posts I want to respond to in just this thread, I guess thats what I get for being out of the house tonight lol.
In the end, whatever. When is the next Pro Tour, as KTK seems to show, maybe we get a do nothing card then instead.
Spirits
I entered Legacy so I could play whatever I wanted without worries but WoTC is taking some action recently (I started playing Jund, then built Miracles and finally Grixis Delver), as you can imagine, the recent bans have crippled my decks which is exactly what I was trying to avoid so be careful when entering the format as that was something I was not expecting back then. The format has a great drawback that hasn't been solved in years and is making it more and more expensive everyday: duals are on the reserved list and are mandatory for 90% of the decks so you need a large investment to play so don't expect many new players joining you. Besides that, it's IMO the most fun and skill intensive format
Cheerio, I'll be over here having some Scotch and playing my Mardu deck.
Plenty of other things are being talked about here. Don’t just look for a reason to drink and try to validate it by picking little things you don’t want to deal with.
You know it's a twin debate when unrelated humor becomes a point of contention. This is why uncle Tron drinks, kids.
I think Wiz is starting to realize/acknowledge Modern is the most popular format. The return of the Modern PT, the team PT featuring Modern and Legacy, the new play design member you mentioned, and most importantly the questions about Modern they asked on that survey recently, all indicate Wiz has figured it out. I remember this thread talking about how bad of a decision removing the Modern PT was all those years ago when it originally happened and now years later Wiz has realized. Standard being terrible these last fews has helped (how much is debatable, but I believe its been a big factor and that Wiz has lost many standard players forever)but as everyone said originally non standard formats are extremely popular. My guess is that Wiz didn't know how to correctly make money off non rotating formats so they tried to focus everything on the formats that did make money for them. Those formats floundered due to poor design while modern and other non standard formats have gained players and the products made for them have generally sold well. Now standard is still the primary format but modern is going to get more attention than its ever gotten before. Question is will Wiz figure out how to make money from modern and support it in ways that are positive: good reprints, balanced and needed new cards (if they go this route), and continued increase in events and coverage.
I'm not sure what "Legacy land" looks like today, but when I played there 5 yars ago.. skill intensive indeed.. it's mandatory to have 4 pieces grave remove for Dredge, and maybe a Null Rod or two in the sideboard for all the Storm Combo. I also had 3 Perish for the elves and zoo players. However, Legacy land is having a slow death because of the Reserved list. Modern has problems too, but it's in much better shape than legacy. Modern is alive with plenty of decks and a large community.
No comment on the unban Twin debate...
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Lots has changed in Legacy in the last 5 years. SDT, TRS, Probe, new cards, etc... Legacy today is dominated by fair decks. Storm has been almost completely removed from the meta, it's one of the most fringe decks. Things are dominated by Grixis Control (usually without Delvers), Miracles, and Death and Taxes. New decks on the scene have been of the fair variety like UB Shadow. Dredge isn't really hated out specifically, but is rather sparse. Show and Tell is the dominant combo deck, and the only one that could be considered Tier 1 though Lands does put up a lot of good showings. Of the top 10 decks, only 6 are Force of Will decks and "only" 7 are Brainstorm decks.
Grossly exaggerated and massively misrepresented. Not the least bit is the history of Spellskite, who has never been higher than $40, spent most of its life at or below $20, and was ironically only that high due to a buyout a few days before banning. But we live in a world where facts and reality no longer matter, and history is what we say it is, not what actually happened.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Harsh fact, most people who hate Twin, didnt even grind in that era.
Spirits
Why would they do that? Maro doesn't want design of the past sets to impact the design choices of the future sets. The way the company deals with the old card problem is through things like commander and conspiracy. They already have a working solution.
Modern is a format that was wanted by players to escape the reserved list. Wizards granted it under the condition that only cards in standard could enter the format. They never planned a rotation or a retirement for modern and it is very unlikely they are going to do so.
For example, if they start a new format, where is the starting point? They have made as great many mistakes recently, so would people want to play a format dominated by the Scarab God, Red deck wins, and various UW control builds?
Not to mention a new non rotating format is a bit of an oxymoron. By supporting a new non rotating format it is basically a rotation of the old one in everything but name.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!