btw i never meant to imply that wizards shouldnt act on these results. the way it played out, it was like it was scripted. the timing was perfect for modern to represent itself being after a holiday break and in the lull before a new standard set, and to have this kind of showing is embarrassing.
i just hope they dont just hit kci with a ban. its the path of least resistance taken yet again. in light of everything else going on in the format it would be a bandaid. a concession. admittance they dont want to put in the effort, take more risks, and try to address balance at the foundational level. it hurts the format on so many levels, for a temporary repreive at best.
unban sfm and twin? sure im down with that. do gsz and or pod for all i care.
we have been watching a car crash in slow motion for quite some time now. stirrings and lootings were discussed all last year, and we saw the decks that rose and fell. certain stuff is pulling away from the pack because it scales better with a growing card pool. it is almost comical how definitively todays results showcased that. wizards hasnt been idle, feeding tools and answers for fair decks; and it has helped. still its pumping too little water out of an ever sinking ship. wizards has clearly chosen not to use the proven solution to lean on blue and its inherently imbalanced qualities to act as an equalizer - as it is in legacy.
if wizards ever intends to declare how they expect to manage modern going forward, now is the perfect time. with their actions.
You don't insert a problematic deck to (try and) fix a problem in a format.
That assumes that the deck a) was actually problematic when it was banned; a point of controversy that has been discussed for three years, and b) would still be problematic today, in a considerably faster and more powerful format, in which it got no meaningful upgrades.
Both of those are very strong assumptions to make.
Considerably faster? The last pages included an analysis of thousand of games and the bottom line was tha the format is 2.7% faster or something.
Yes Twin IS problematic. Banned rightfully or not, the past 3 years have shown that the mere mention of a 4 mana red enchantment is beyond toxic. However you cut it, Twin was/is a problem for a significant portion of the playerbase and for Wizards themselves.
Also, no meaningful upgrades? Then what is Jace? What is Azcanta? What is Ancestral? What is Opt? Hell, what is Teferi, if not meaningful upgrades to fight UWx control/midrange and bury BGx, the two historically bad matchups of 45-55?
It's not Wild Nacatl, it's more Grave Troll after Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh. Saying that Twin is a safe unban and there is no chance of supplanting KCI as the best deck in the format is asinine and a very strong assumption.
KCI's worst matchups are decks with White in them, as a start unban SFM to facilitate them with an early proactive threat and go from there. Don't introduce a factor with extremely wide uncertainty, that's asking for trouble...
You don't insert a problematic deck to (try and) fix a problem in a format.
That assumes that the deck a) was actually problematic when it was banned; a point of controversy that has been discussed for three years, and b) would still be problematic today, in a considerably faster and more powerful format, in which it got no meaningful upgrades.
Both of those are very strong assumptions to make.
It's not a strong assumption that Wizards thought it was problematic, according to the Splinter Twin ban announcement:
We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.
Antonio Del Moral León won Pro Tour Fate Reforged playing Splinter Twin, and Jelger Wiegersma finished third; Splinter Twin has won two of the four Modern Pro Tours. Splinter Twin reached the Top 8 of the last six Modern Grand Prix. The last Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh had three Splinter Twin decks in the Top 8, including Alex Bianchi's winning deck.
Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks. For instance, Shaun McLaren won Pro Tour Born of the Gods playing this Jeskai control deck. Alex Bianchi won our most recent Modern Grand Prix playing a similar deck but adding the Splinter Twin combination. Similarly, Temur Tempo used to see play at high-level events but has been supplanted by Temur Twin.
We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement.
In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.
So however we feel about it now, it checked enough boxes for Wizards to ban it, and the main point in bold above was that it was powerful enough to stymie format diversity.
As far as being more powerful today? I highly doubt it, honestly, though I don't feel it's as safe as some of the other options we have, especially SFM (which would barely put a dent in the format at this point). Opt is a definite pick-up, and a horde of maybes are available depending on the splash, but it's hard to imagine Twin dominating the format when decks like Izzet Phoenix, GDS, and Azorius Control are doing well.
As a Gx Tron player, I would be very excited for Twin to return. Some of my most memorable matches over the years were against Twin decks, and it would help keep a lot of the decks that give mine issues in check. That bias aside, however, I recognize that Twin decks run the risk of cannibalizing most other combo decks, especially if KCI gets a piece banned. Because of this, I'm skeptical Wizards would feel that they would get more out of letting Twin be legal in the format again. Most of the cards that comprise the deck already have good equity save for the namesake card itself, and you'd be risking value of card in decks like Ad Nauseam, Storm, and all sorts of other decks in the exchange.
I'm still of the opinion that says Ancient Stirrings should go, not KCI.
It would be sad to see an entire archetype disappear when it can be reigned in instead by reducing its consistency.
If the deck presents logistical issues, and only if, then I would advocate KCI itself as the correct target.
But if this is not the case, and it is just too consistent at assembling the combo, then I would suggest Stirrings instead, which eliminates no entire archetypes but reduces the consistency of various hated archetypes such as Lantern, Tron, Amulet, and KCI simultaneously. Just as Ponder and Preordain went away to reduce the consistency of a large swath of blue/red combo decks, I think this would be the correct option.
KCI won on camera several times without even casting Stirrings to go off this weekend, and it did so quickly and through multiple hate cards. Banning something that isn't pushing anything else over the curve is not a good idea, as you risk not hitting KCI hard enough, while punishing other decks that, while potent, aren't dominating the format. This directly risks equity in all of the affected decks (and no; Gx Tron wouldn't be competitively viable with Oath of Nissa instead) as well as a much broader hit to format confidence. If something from KCI is going to get banned (which looks increasingly probable), it needs to be something that targets KCI specifically.
Proposing bans on Ancient Stirrings or Faithless Looting at this point in time makes absolutely no sense because the equity and confidence risks are far too great. And, once again, it is disingenuous to group entirely different archetypes together for the purpose of ban assessment of a card they happen to share. If you can't accept the fact that decks like Tron, Lantern, and Hardened Scales are reasonable format inclusions, that's your problem, not everyone else's. Driving the false narrative that Ponder and Preordain being banned necessitates Stirrings or Looting to be banned for being better versions isn't productive, and Wizards isn't going to act on it, so you need to get used to it.
It's not a strong assumption that Wizards thought it was problematic, according to the Splinter Twin ban announcement:
I really try not to retread the same arguments over and over and over again, but the words they wrote down and their intentions carried different weight. By any and all measurable piece of data, Twin was nowhere near any Diversity ban before, or since. So with that ban, they are either re-defining their criteria or something else was at play. Every one of their predictions and justifications were laughably wrong: No similar decks were being suppressed, as none of them sprung up after the ban or as a result of the ban. No decks were "suitable replacements," as neither Kiki Jiki, nor "similar temur or jeskai decks" did anything of importance, really ever, outside of the flash-in-the-pan that was Nahiri/Emrakul. At least not until multiple new cards were introduced many years later, and even today are just kind of meh.
We (the collective people who think the ban is utter nonsense) believe that Wizards were either horrendously ignorant about the deck, were incredibly short-sighted and reacting to the triple GP Top 8 just before announcement, or were simply making things up to sound like reasonable things to justify shaking up the Pro Tour in order to push the appearance of new Standard cards at Modern PT events, and following the trend of "ban the best deck every year" that had become the norm. And considering the multitude of "we just made up these new reasons and criteria for banning" that we have seen across both Modern and Standard the last few years, I don't think it's at all hard to believe.
TL;DR - We understand what they wrote in the ban announcement. We just think it's a load of horses**t.
Naturally can play Thoughtseize, Surgical Extraction, Tarmogoyf, Lingering Souls, Stony Silence, and Rest in Peace. Has disruption, clock, and the ever important White hate, and yet when is the last time Junk did anything?
Why is it not seeing any play?
Its clock isn't fast enough to meaningfully race the turn 3-4 decks, and it falls under the "draw my answer or lose" kind of deck. Plus it gets dumpstered by Titanshift and Tron, both very popular and good decks.
I think the first part is most critical. Every deck has bad match-ups, but Abzan's good ones aren't enough to make up for the bad ones. Because its best threat (Tarmogoyf) relies on the GY and w/o it you're walking a razor's edge of Scooze and Confidant beats. Makes it challenging to take advantage of the great hate cards.
To be frank, I'm not sure what the direction wizards wants to take in paper magic is at this point. They don't have any problems with expensive cards on the secondary market, and they've been very quiet on changes to standard, let alone modern. The thing is that wizards of the coast has felt very blind at times with how they handle the game compared to other companies, which feels odd considering it's a US company and their primary audience speaks english.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
"We actually hit our target and the near entire community feels its a success!"
For Modern, there are literally 20 decks one could play, to various levels of success, especially if you are not aiming to be the next MTG Hall of Fame Member. You had over 2000 players at 2 major events, right after the holidays (I'm back to work tomorrow, RIP me.) and....nothing is even remotely at Eldrazi levels, while the deck that won the GP was created a month ago.
KCI taking over seems perfectly natural, hyper-aggro still loses to fast combo and KCI has a decent matchup against control.
What magic really needs is something that can either clear the grave or destroy artifacts to unify the sideboard slots. That or a faster but more fragile combo deck to clear out the aggro but job to control.
Did the meta not shift to beat KCI? Or were we all fooled into thinking we had actually done it? The truth may be that the deck was heavily underplayed and that we are not all the "pro player" we all hope to be. It seems like KCI is the defacto best deck in modern in the hands of someone truly understands the ins and outs of the deck. If this is true, then it really only loses to itself. While we as players can board into "Stony, Relics, Leylines, Claims, Wet Balls, Ect ect", it may be that we are misunderstanding what a real clock is. Izzet Archlight decks clock well and have an insane ability cantrip. This allows pilots to find their SB cards, hold up disruption and pressure all that same time.
GB/x decks do not have that filtering, tribal decks do not have the ability to churn through their deck and "find" their SB cards in time for them all to matter. Sure sometimes you draw them but these decks rely on drawing them. Izzet decks alongside Shadow decks can actively dig for answers via their cantrips. So the argument that all we need to do is pack disruption is flawed. We need a clock, SB cards and the ability to "find" them in time to matter. KCI does this as well, it has an one of the best "find X colorless thing" card in modern Ancient Stirrings. In the past we had Humans and now Spirits touted as being the answer to KCI! Were we wrong? Today's GP and SCG indicate that maybe we were mislead?
I don't know if we all comprehend what it means to actually "hate" out KCI. It has not been relegated to being just another deck. Most Pros agree that it's not played heavily due to how difficult it is to pilot on mtgo. Since most testing is done on there, the meta view may be incorrect. KCI taking 4 top 8 slots is going to raise red flags. Should we all start tune our starting 60 to include 4 leylines + 3 relics? Do we all need to have 3-4 RIP in our W decks (main deck!?). That's a lot to ask for, and would be extremely warping.
So, how do we actually hate out KCI before we keep asking for it to banned. Is Reid Duke right? Survival of the fittest? We should try and beat it in every which way possible first. Haven't we already tried for an an entire year?
KCI clearly wasn't the deck to beat going into this tournament. That honor goes to Phoenix which was and still is everywhere and took the lions share of everyone's attention
if consistency cant be achieve through explicit tools, then it must be done implicitly with redundancy.
for instance its common for bgx/jund player to highlight the lack of their own selection tool as what holds the deck/archetype back. this is a partial truth. it is more accurate to say that the premise through which it achieved its form of consistency when it was better positioned is along the lines of 'all of my draws are good/useful'. which is no longer true.
what causes the 'drawing the wrong half'-syndrome is when the spectrum of strategies you might face spreads out. particularly if the set of 'stronger' or 'better' strategies are disparate in nature.
the usual common denominator when 'fair' decks happened to be better positioned is when removal is also well positioned. its the most commonly found 'disruption' in the game seeing as creatures are everywhere too. when that axis of interaction is working, decks that heavily feature it naturally become more consistent and therefore better.
the mantra that you need some plan against graveyards and artifacts has pretty much existed all of the time. what we have seen recently though is that running more hate isnt as effective, and more emphasis is placed on the specific type or nature of that hate. not all color combos have equal access.
how a strategy that runs on a certain axis ultimately requires more specificity is because they are more resilient. a goal of every deck.
so unlike at various points in the past. instead of being asked the single question of 'do you X for Y?', a second one is added 'is X effective against the class of Y?'. for example 'do you have removal?' becomes 'do you have removal? and does it exile?'.
in turn decks that include more answers become even less consistent. a deck might not care about relic and care about surgical, a land based deck might care about blood moon but care about alpine moon, and so on.
based on all of this the nature of 'hating out' decks in the meta for modern has shifted to being deck based. if everyone is 'running more hate', but only a sub set is effective you might not push out a deck that would have been. so instead the format looks toward decks that are advantaged on a strategic level.
TLDR: kci pushback requires stony decks and decks naturally good against it.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Yes Twin IS problematic. Banned rightfully or not, the past 3 years have shown that the mere mention of a 4 mana red enchantment is beyond toxic. However you cut it, Twin was/is a problem for a significant portion of the playerbase and for Wizards themselves.
People's subjective feelings aren't a good reason for banning a deck or keeping it banned. There are always going to be people who hate any deck. Besides, Twin was considerably less hated than a lot of decks that are still legal to play right now.
Also, no meaningful upgrades? Then what is Jace? What is Azcanta? What is Ancestral? What is Opt? Hell, what is Teferi, if not meaningful upgrades to fight UWx control/midrange and bury BGx, the two historically bad matchups of 45-55?
Twin would not play Azcanta or Ancestral. Azcanta doesn't find your combo creatures, and Ancestral has been proven to be too slow for Modern. And it doesn't really matter if Teferi would go into Jeskai Twin, because that was a bad deck, so I don't really care what they do. Opt is really a sidegrade for the deck. It's a worse cantrip than Serum Visions in terms of digging, which is very important for Twin, but Opt's instant speed just plays better with the instant speed nature of the deck. Finally, yeah I'm sure we'd replace Jace, AoT with Mind Sculptors for the fair matchups, but if this last year has proven anything, it's that Jace is just ok in Modern. So yeah, Twin has not been upgraded at the same rate as the format as a whole.
It's not Wild Nacatl, it's more Grave Troll after Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh. Saying that Twin is a safe unban and there is no chance of supplanting KCI as the best deck in the format is asinine and a very strong assumption.
Twin is a safe unban because it probably would have been safe to just not have banned it when they did in the first place. Yeah, Twin was the best deck of 2015, a bit better than Affinity and Jund were. It was 12% of the meta in December. Well, GDS was over 12% at one point in 2017, and Humans was 12% for a large portion of 2018, and both were considered the de facto "best deck" in those years, and yet they were both left alone. And thankfully so, because the meta shifted and they both settled into a comfortable position as just another good deck in the format. If you think Twin would still dominate the format today, look at what I said were the second and third best decks of 2015. Traditional Affinity practically doesn't exist anymore, and Jund has been on life support for years, despite WotC desperately pumping the shell with cards to keep it alive. You're absolutely out of your mind if you think Twin would be as good in 2019 as it was in 2015.
And finally, Twin itself was not inherently problematic. Twin being at 12% of the meta was borderline problematic, but any deck being that ubiquitous is a bit of a problem. WotC had never taken action on a deck as low as 12% before the Twin ban, though, and they haven't taken action on other decks that have reached the same metashare level that Twin did in the last couple years. And that's largely because of the backlash from the Twin ban. The outcry from that, along with the people who weren't happy about the Pod ban, made WotC realize that whack-a-mole bannings every year to keep the format power down weren't what the players wanted.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Let's remind ourselves that banning KCI still doesn't address a myriad of other problems plaguing the format. KCI is a symptom of a larger disease: the lack of any meaningful or respected safety valve for the format.
Let's remind ourselves that banning KCI still doesn't address a myriad of other problems plaguing the format. KCI is a symptom of a larger disease: the lack of any meaningful or respected safety valve for the format.
While this may be true, I think KCI is the strongest result of that fault of the format. I don't think there is any deck that can thrive so well in this Modern as KCI. As much as I enjoy the deck and think it's cool to have such an intricate combo exist, it's just too consistent and powerful in the face of a "reasonable" amount of hate. In a format without KCI, I don't think we'd see any deck rise to KCI levels of power (not representation, actual strength in terms of ability to do its thing regardless of what the opponent is packing). Because of this, I don't think KCI is really suppressing any decks, outside of just being the better choice for people looking for a good grinding deck. I don't think there are any archetypes that see invalid now that will magically become ok to play without KCI in the format. The issue, like everyone else is saying, is that it's a non-interactive world out there, and the breadth of axes you, as an interactive archetype, can expect to be fought on is insurmountable given the tools you currently have to work with. Without getting new tools, we'll probably just end up in much the same format, just without a clear best deck, which honestly might just be for the best in general. You just go back to the arguments of lots of pros, who are still going to be whining that it's a matchup lottery, that you can't possibly prepare for the whole format, and now who can't even toss their chips in with a clear tier 1/0 deck that takes tons of practice to master. I think KCI is alright for Modern, but it might be a sacrificial scapegoat in the Varied Non-Interactive Bonanza that is our meta at the moment.
Oh, please, Mengucchi is full of *****. He wrote that second statement because he doesn't want to see the repercussions of his original feelings. I also think there's a reason CFB stopped giving him modern content and regulated him to mainly legacy articles, sprinkled with standard.
This all being said, banning KCI won't fix an inherent problem modern is facing---it is very much a format with decks ignoring one another. KCI is just another powerful, problematic deck---but it's not solely to blame.
I truly think it's time to unban some powerful, risky cards like Twin. If not, then I feel like WOTC is going to have to continue to ban decks like this and we have to hope to god to continue to have very fair, meaningful cards enter the pool.
Or, some type of cards that bypass standard and enter modern.
I understand that people don't like KCI, but this really is a systemic issue. Things won't magically get better when KCI is gone. We need an influx of fair answers to the non-interactive side of Modern, and I doubt that is something that we'll see anytime soon. We're getting dangerously close to just banning the best deck when it appears, instead of trying to make other decks better. I really wish I could be a fly on the wall during these ban-restricted decisions so we can know just what they think of situations like this. The appalling lack of clarity during all these no-changes is frightening.
Safety valves exist. I don't know if they are enough, but they do exist.
Humans is a nice safety valve. It's just that this deck is able to play 3-4 Engineered Explosives as part of it's combo and gets to ruin the deck. This is on the KCI deck. You don't really get to be super strong, while being able to play so powerful cards as part of your combo.
I play exclusively GDS, and it's another safety valve. I have a great win percentage against KCI. So big, that I don't want it banned to be honest. But if we all want a better Modern, that's what we should ask ourselves.
The safety valves exist, but not in enough numbers to keep these decks in check. Humans was only 3% of the GP meta, and GDS 5%. Compare that to earlier in the year when Modern was awesome, when Humans was close to 12% and GDS was like 3%, combining for 15%.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Also, IF, KCI were to eat a ban, the deck would most likely use the Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek combo seen in the second place team at SCGCol this weekend with minimal changes.
Also, IF, KCI were to eat a ban, the deck would most likely use the Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek combo seen in the second place team at SCGCol this weekend with minimal changes.
Yeah but this combo seems way weaker to surgical extraction.
At least every color combinaison would have access to a great answer to the combo..
That's an entirely different deck, though. KCI can use it as a secondary axis to fight through hate (mostly through Extirpate effects, as Stony and RiP both shut down Thopter Sword as well), but it's so much slower and less powerful than the KCI/Trawler package. You're ultimately better off just playing UB Tezzerator if you want to jump ship for Thopter Sword.
Also, IF, KCI were to eat a ban, the deck would most likely use the Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek combo seen in the second place team at SCGCol this weekend with minimal changes.
KCI is what allows Thopter/Sword to go infinite.
Thopter/Sword is what the deck would play without Scrap Trawler, if that ends up being the ban, which I do not expect.
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Spirits
i just hope they dont just hit kci with a ban. its the path of least resistance taken yet again. in light of everything else going on in the format it would be a bandaid. a concession. admittance they dont want to put in the effort, take more risks, and try to address balance at the foundational level. it hurts the format on so many levels, for a temporary repreive at best.
unban sfm and twin? sure im down with that. do gsz and or pod for all i care.
we have been watching a car crash in slow motion for quite some time now. stirrings and lootings were discussed all last year, and we saw the decks that rose and fell. certain stuff is pulling away from the pack because it scales better with a growing card pool. it is almost comical how definitively todays results showcased that. wizards hasnt been idle, feeding tools and answers for fair decks; and it has helped. still its pumping too little water out of an ever sinking ship. wizards has clearly chosen not to use the proven solution to lean on blue and its inherently imbalanced qualities to act as an equalizer - as it is in legacy.
if wizards ever intends to declare how they expect to manage modern going forward, now is the perfect time. with their actions.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Considerably faster? The last pages included an analysis of thousand of games and the bottom line was tha the format is 2.7% faster or something.
Yes Twin IS problematic. Banned rightfully or not, the past 3 years have shown that the mere mention of a 4 mana red enchantment is beyond toxic. However you cut it, Twin was/is a problem for a significant portion of the playerbase and for Wizards themselves.
Also, no meaningful upgrades? Then what is Jace? What is Azcanta? What is Ancestral? What is Opt? Hell, what is Teferi, if not meaningful upgrades to fight UWx control/midrange and bury BGx, the two historically bad matchups of 45-55?
It's not Wild Nacatl, it's more Grave Troll after Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh. Saying that Twin is a safe unban and there is no chance of supplanting KCI as the best deck in the format is asinine and a very strong assumption.
KCI's worst matchups are decks with White in them, as a start unban SFM to facilitate them with an early proactive threat and go from there. Don't introduce a factor with extremely wide uncertainty, that's asking for trouble...
Spirits
So however we feel about it now, it checked enough boxes for Wizards to ban it, and the main point in bold above was that it was powerful enough to stymie format diversity.
As far as being more powerful today? I highly doubt it, honestly, though I don't feel it's as safe as some of the other options we have, especially SFM (which would barely put a dent in the format at this point). Opt is a definite pick-up, and a horde of maybes are available depending on the splash, but it's hard to imagine Twin dominating the format when decks like Izzet Phoenix, GDS, and Azorius Control are doing well.
As a Gx Tron player, I would be very excited for Twin to return. Some of my most memorable matches over the years were against Twin decks, and it would help keep a lot of the decks that give mine issues in check. That bias aside, however, I recognize that Twin decks run the risk of cannibalizing most other combo decks, especially if KCI gets a piece banned. Because of this, I'm skeptical Wizards would feel that they would get more out of letting Twin be legal in the format again. Most of the cards that comprise the deck already have good equity save for the namesake card itself, and you'd be risking value of card in decks like Ad Nauseam, Storm, and all sorts of other decks in the exchange.
KCI won on camera several times without even casting Stirrings to go off this weekend, and it did so quickly and through multiple hate cards. Banning something that isn't pushing anything else over the curve is not a good idea, as you risk not hitting KCI hard enough, while punishing other decks that, while potent, aren't dominating the format. This directly risks equity in all of the affected decks (and no; Gx Tron wouldn't be competitively viable with Oath of Nissa instead) as well as a much broader hit to format confidence. If something from KCI is going to get banned (which looks increasingly probable), it needs to be something that targets KCI specifically.
Proposing bans on Ancient Stirrings or Faithless Looting at this point in time makes absolutely no sense because the equity and confidence risks are far too great. And, once again, it is disingenuous to group entirely different archetypes together for the purpose of ban assessment of a card they happen to share. If you can't accept the fact that decks like Tron, Lantern, and Hardened Scales are reasonable format inclusions, that's your problem, not everyone else's. Driving the false narrative that Ponder and Preordain being banned necessitates Stirrings or Looting to be banned for being better versions isn't productive, and Wizards isn't going to act on it, so you need to get used to it.
I really try not to retread the same arguments over and over and over again, but the words they wrote down and their intentions carried different weight. By any and all measurable piece of data, Twin was nowhere near any Diversity ban before, or since. So with that ban, they are either re-defining their criteria or something else was at play. Every one of their predictions and justifications were laughably wrong: No similar decks were being suppressed, as none of them sprung up after the ban or as a result of the ban. No decks were "suitable replacements," as neither Kiki Jiki, nor "similar temur or jeskai decks" did anything of importance, really ever, outside of the flash-in-the-pan that was Nahiri/Emrakul. At least not until multiple new cards were introduced many years later, and even today are just kind of meh.
We (the collective people who think the ban is utter nonsense) believe that Wizards were either horrendously ignorant about the deck, were incredibly short-sighted and reacting to the triple GP Top 8 just before announcement, or were simply making things up to sound like reasonable things to justify shaking up the Pro Tour in order to push the appearance of new Standard cards at Modern PT events, and following the trend of "ban the best deck every year" that had become the norm. And considering the multitude of "we just made up these new reasons and criteria for banning" that we have seen across both Modern and Standard the last few years, I don't think it's at all hard to believe.
TL;DR - We understand what they wrote in the ban announcement. We just think it's a load of horses**t.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think the first part is most critical. Every deck has bad match-ups, but Abzan's good ones aren't enough to make up for the bad ones. Because its best threat (Tarmogoyf) relies on the GY and w/o it you're walking a razor's edge of Scooze and Confidant beats. Makes it challenging to take advantage of the great hate cards.
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!
"We actually hit our target and the near entire community feels its a success!"
For Modern, there are literally 20 decks one could play, to various levels of success, especially if you are not aiming to be the next MTG Hall of Fame Member. You had over 2000 players at 2 major events, right after the holidays (I'm back to work tomorrow, RIP me.) and....nothing is even remotely at Eldrazi levels, while the deck that won the GP was created a month ago.
Why would they even think there is an issue?
Spirits
What magic really needs is something that can either clear the grave or destroy artifacts to unify the sideboard slots. That or a faster but more fragile combo deck to clear out the aggro but job to control.
Spirits
GB/x decks do not have that filtering, tribal decks do not have the ability to churn through their deck and "find" their SB cards in time for them all to matter. Sure sometimes you draw them but these decks rely on drawing them. Izzet decks alongside Shadow decks can actively dig for answers via their cantrips. So the argument that all we need to do is pack disruption is flawed. We need a clock, SB cards and the ability to "find" them in time to matter. KCI does this as well, it has an one of the best "find X colorless thing" card in modern Ancient Stirrings. In the past we had Humans and now Spirits touted as being the answer to KCI! Were we wrong? Today's GP and SCG indicate that maybe we were mislead?
I don't know if we all comprehend what it means to actually "hate" out KCI. It has not been relegated to being just another deck. Most Pros agree that it's not played heavily due to how difficult it is to pilot on mtgo. Since most testing is done on there, the meta view may be incorrect. KCI taking 4 top 8 slots is going to raise red flags. Should we all start tune our starting 60 to include 4 leylines + 3 relics? Do we all need to have 3-4 RIP in our W decks (main deck!?). That's a lot to ask for, and would be extremely warping.
So, how do we actually hate out KCI before we keep asking for it to banned. Is Reid Duke right? Survival of the fittest? We should try and beat it in every which way possible first. Haven't we already tried for an an entire year?
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
for instance its common for bgx/jund player to highlight the lack of their own selection tool as what holds the deck/archetype back. this is a partial truth. it is more accurate to say that the premise through which it achieved its form of consistency when it was better positioned is along the lines of 'all of my draws are good/useful'. which is no longer true.
what causes the 'drawing the wrong half'-syndrome is when the spectrum of strategies you might face spreads out. particularly if the set of 'stronger' or 'better' strategies are disparate in nature.
the usual common denominator when 'fair' decks happened to be better positioned is when removal is also well positioned. its the most commonly found 'disruption' in the game seeing as creatures are everywhere too. when that axis of interaction is working, decks that heavily feature it naturally become more consistent and therefore better.
the mantra that you need some plan against graveyards and artifacts has pretty much existed all of the time. what we have seen recently though is that running more hate isnt as effective, and more emphasis is placed on the specific type or nature of that hate. not all color combos have equal access.
how a strategy that runs on a certain axis ultimately requires more specificity is because they are more resilient. a goal of every deck.
so unlike at various points in the past. instead of being asked the single question of 'do you X for Y?', a second one is added 'is X effective against the class of Y?'. for example 'do you have removal?' becomes 'do you have removal? and does it exile?'.
in turn decks that include more answers become even less consistent. a deck might not care about relic and care about surgical, a land based deck might care about blood moon but care about alpine moon, and so on.
based on all of this the nature of 'hating out' decks in the meta for modern has shifted to being deck based. if everyone is 'running more hate', but only a sub set is effective you might not push out a deck that would have been. so instead the format looks toward decks that are advantaged on a strategic level.
TLDR: kci pushback requires stony decks and decks naturally good against it.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Twin would not play Azcanta or Ancestral. Azcanta doesn't find your combo creatures, and Ancestral has been proven to be too slow for Modern. And it doesn't really matter if Teferi would go into Jeskai Twin, because that was a bad deck, so I don't really care what they do. Opt is really a sidegrade for the deck. It's a worse cantrip than Serum Visions in terms of digging, which is very important for Twin, but Opt's instant speed just plays better with the instant speed nature of the deck. Finally, yeah I'm sure we'd replace Jace, AoT with Mind Sculptors for the fair matchups, but if this last year has proven anything, it's that Jace is just ok in Modern. So yeah, Twin has not been upgraded at the same rate as the format as a whole.
Twin is a safe unban because it probably would have been safe to just not have banned it when they did in the first place. Yeah, Twin was the best deck of 2015, a bit better than Affinity and Jund were. It was 12% of the meta in December. Well, GDS was over 12% at one point in 2017, and Humans was 12% for a large portion of 2018, and both were considered the de facto "best deck" in those years, and yet they were both left alone. And thankfully so, because the meta shifted and they both settled into a comfortable position as just another good deck in the format. If you think Twin would still dominate the format today, look at what I said were the second and third best decks of 2015. Traditional Affinity practically doesn't exist anymore, and Jund has been on life support for years, despite WotC desperately pumping the shell with cards to keep it alive. You're absolutely out of your mind if you think Twin would be as good in 2019 as it was in 2015.
And finally, Twin itself was not inherently problematic. Twin being at 12% of the meta was borderline problematic, but any deck being that ubiquitous is a bit of a problem. WotC had never taken action on a deck as low as 12% before the Twin ban, though, and they haven't taken action on other decks that have reached the same metashare level that Twin did in the last couple years. And that's largely because of the backlash from the Twin ban. The outcry from that, along with the people who weren't happy about the Pod ban, made WotC realize that whack-a-mole bannings every year to keep the format power down weren't what the players wanted.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
While this may be true, I think KCI is the strongest result of that fault of the format. I don't think there is any deck that can thrive so well in this Modern as KCI. As much as I enjoy the deck and think it's cool to have such an intricate combo exist, it's just too consistent and powerful in the face of a "reasonable" amount of hate. In a format without KCI, I don't think we'd see any deck rise to KCI levels of power (not representation, actual strength in terms of ability to do its thing regardless of what the opponent is packing). Because of this, I don't think KCI is really suppressing any decks, outside of just being the better choice for people looking for a good grinding deck. I don't think there are any archetypes that see invalid now that will magically become ok to play without KCI in the format. The issue, like everyone else is saying, is that it's a non-interactive world out there, and the breadth of axes you, as an interactive archetype, can expect to be fought on is insurmountable given the tools you currently have to work with. Without getting new tools, we'll probably just end up in much the same format, just without a clear best deck, which honestly might just be for the best in general. You just go back to the arguments of lots of pros, who are still going to be whining that it's a matchup lottery, that you can't possibly prepare for the whole format, and now who can't even toss their chips in with a clear tier 1/0 deck that takes tons of practice to master. I think KCI is alright for Modern, but it might be a sacrificial scapegoat in the Varied Non-Interactive Bonanza that is our meta at the moment.
This all being said, banning KCI won't fix an inherent problem modern is facing---it is very much a format with decks ignoring one another. KCI is just another powerful, problematic deck---but it's not solely to blame.
I truly think it's time to unban some powerful, risky cards like Twin. If not, then I feel like WOTC is going to have to continue to ban decks like this and we have to hope to god to continue to have very fair, meaningful cards enter the pool.
Or, some type of cards that bypass standard and enter modern.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Yeah but this combo seems way weaker to surgical extraction.
At least every color combinaison would have access to a great answer to the combo..
It could be fine for me.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
KCI is what allows Thopter/Sword to go infinite.
Thopter/Sword is what the deck would play without Scrap Trawler, if that ends up being the ban, which I do not expect.