It really is funny to pop into this thread after a hiatus and see the same wheelbarrel is still rolling.
Twin was bad for the growth of the Modern format, good riddance, hopefully it stays banned.
Control is now pretty much tier 1-1.1. You have to account for the control matchup if you wish to succeed in this Modern meta.
Stoneforge unban is a maybe, but more likely than it has been before. I don’t think we’ll see it unbanned so soon though. Ravnica is around the corner, and historically that has always introduced a glut of powerful multicolor cards. I’d wait to see their impact, and I bet so will WotC.
Green Sun’s Zenith ban was not about power, and people who clamor for its return do so not understanding the reason it was banned.
Preordain isn’t coming back, just play pauper or legacy if you want your blue cantrip fix.
OPINION: Ancient Stirrings ban is possible, but only because Tron is a negative influence and really a police deck the format doesn’t need. It skews control and midrange and allows the existence of hyper linear decks. Tron getting knocked down a peg, would ultimately a good thing for Modern growth.
While we’ve seen the emergence of a multitude of linear/aggressive decks we have also seen a blooming of fair decks as well. Hopefully some of the catchall answers we saw in the last Ravnica (dsphere, dreadbore, decay, verdict) come to light in this new one as well.
These have all seen play in some lists that have done well, or will at least show up in the future. It is better for new cards that enter the format to help niche decks than power up format all-stars. We don't need tons of Fatal Push powered cards.
I think that Rivals, while not introducing many overtly powerful cards, gave us some potential interesting build arounds that might pop up in the future. They’ll at the very least be fun to brew with. Most of the colored flip lands have some potential.
Sun is a badly designed card. Helps Tron and Eldrazi decks, hurts fair decks. Both a missed opportunity to make good hate and a potentially harmful failure. And it took the online community about 10 minutes to realize this; Play Design input can't come soon enough.
I think you might be exaggerating a bit. If Tron is playing this on turn 3, they aren't exactly playing a turn 3 Karn that everyone likes to complain about. Most opponents would have already used any possible fetches, and frankly this just gives opponents an additional turn while your opponent wasted their turn 3 doing nothing.
Second of all, they have to revert back to good old GR Tron to even run Blood Sun reliably, losing recent tech of Fatal Push/Collective Brutality (making them softer to certain decks). In regards to Eldrazi Tron, I can't see them diluting their mana bases to run a sideboard card just to counter cards like Ghost Quarter.
I like Blood Sun, it's an interesting card that hits greedy fair decks and has weird build around merits. It also hates on Valakut which is fine by me. We'll see if it has any place in modern.
PS: I agree that such card should be printed. It's just that it isn't happening.
Tron/Titanshift needs their predators. Otherwise it's broken. And we did have two(*redacted*/Infect-DSZoo). They banned both. There is no solution now.
The hyperbole over here is astounding. "The sky is falling, our Tron overlords are here to stay! Tron Winter!" Give me a break.
Burn, Storm, Affinity, etc. Plenty of decks race Tron/Titanshift no problem. If Tron/Titanshift uprise is sustained the meta will correct itself and the big baddies will be brought down, as we've seen time and time again. To say there are no natural predators is a false statement.
Would it be nice if fair decks had more interaction with big mana decks? Yes. I would like that. However, nothing off the ban list would help the majority of fair decks on this front. Field of Ruin was a good step in this direction, and hopefully we see more cards like it.
No we don't. Modern has improved dramatically without bans for awhile now. New cards have improved the format. New cards will continue to improve the format.
Still in the no unbans camp. It figures Big Tron would wipe a meta completely unprepared for it, and filled with grindy decks like Jeskai/UW Control. The meta will correct itself and faster decks that can go under Tron will go under Tron.
As always, instead of old and problematic cards, I'm in the camp of just waiting for new cards to roll into modern. We've seen Search for Azcanta and Opt make it into many blue lists this weekend. Slowly but surely Wizards is printing tools for those decks. An unban like Jace (senseless as that is with it helping none of the unfair matches) just limits the tools they can potentially print for modern.
People have a very warped view on what interaction is here. Interaction does not have to be an Instant or Sorcery to be considered interaction. Take the Merfolk vs Humans semi-final game. There were lots of creature ETB effects that modified the game state and made the game dynamic. Furthermore, when you have cards like Aether Vial, the impact of each individual creature in your hand becomes akin to that of an instant spell, whether it's mass pump with lords, flashing in extra blockers like a damage spell, or using creature ETB effects at instant speed. With Aether Vial, almost every creature in one's deck is some form of interaction.
To call a deck like Death and Taxes one with minimal interaction is laughable. Aside from some beater slots like Blade Splicer, most every other spell in the deck can interacts with the opponent in some way.
Not only that, but creature vs creature Magic is inherently more interactive than interaction on the stack. There are a lot more decision trees in terms of blocks/attacks than there are to put a spell on the stack in this format.
I'd like to point something out very abruptly before we continute this conversation.
Look at the top spells and creatures played in Modern please. Do not show me results of a deck that's 0.005% of a metagame and claim that a new set has added a format staple.
That is very par for 2-5 per block. Don't ******* tell me Disallow is a ******* format staple in Modern.
Playable cards =/= format staple all stars. Not every card has to as powerful as Fatal Push to be considered a playable card. That's a ridiculous standard.
For example, Cathartic Reunion/Insolent Neonate miss the top 50 in both lists, but are extremely relevant cards that make Dredge tick. These, by definition, are playable cards. The same is true of many cards that enter the format.
All Modern is really missing is a few generic answers. Barring that, most new cards that enter the format would be better off either supporting underdeveloped archetypes or new build arounds.
And for the record on bans, we don't need any bans and don't need any unbans. I'm against Stoneforge Mystic not because of her power, but the fact that she homogenizes every white/white splashing deck to look the same. She has the hidden cost of being a card that takes up 7+ slots. I'd rather white be shored up another way.
I think a lot of the "skill" attributed to consistent T8 appearances has more to do with their deck selection and sideboard structure than their actual gameplay decisions. Not to say that those aren't skillful traits (or the product of working closely with testing teams), but let's be honest, the deck you are playing against is often much more important than the person you are playing against.
Edit: never mind the byes they get, which allow them to more carefully select and tune their deck for a more predictable meta.
Tell that to players like Craig Wescoe who always play the same variant of deck regardless of meta and still manage to top 8.
According to the link above, Wescoe has only 7 T8s out of 94 GPs. This tells me that more often than not, White Weenie decks are pretty bad, but once in a while, they do well and he has the skill to capitalize on when they are doing well (like at the recent Vegas GP). His numbers show that skill alone can't reliably overcome a deck's inherent weaknesses, and further illustrates the impact of deck choice over individual player skill.
First of all, I don't believe this list of GPs is just modern events, so it's not like we can evaluate his performance with a certain deck in a certain format. Furthermore, even getting in the top 16/32 consistently as he does is pretty impressive for a style of play that has never been considered tier 1. If he can play a strategy that is considered weak and get consistent results from his career I find that pretty indicative.
I think a lot of the "skill" attributed to consistent T8 appearances has more to do with their deck selection and sideboard structure than their actual gameplay decisions. Not to say that those aren't skillful traits (or the product of working closely with testing teams), but let's be honest, the deck you are playing against is often much more important than the person you are playing against.
Edit: never mind the byes they get, which allow them to more carefully select and tune their deck for a more predictable meta.
Tell that to players like Craig Wescoe who always play the same variant of deck regardless of meta and still manage to top 8.
We've seen some DnT decks sideboard Wraths before, do you think that Dusk could see play in sideboards? It's a grindy card that leaves some of our board state in tact, and in the late game gives us some recursion.
It's body leaves much to be desired, and it targets only creatures which is a huge knock against it. Most removal gets used in the combat phase, so it can still save your creatures, so I'm not sure.
Can we suggest small changes to the current suggestions? Like maybe making Spell Transform not exile the spell, but discard it, and make it exile the spell it's casting from the graveyard instead? So you can't loop the same spell over and over.
Twin was bad for the growth of the Modern format, good riddance, hopefully it stays banned.
Control is now pretty much tier 1-1.1. You have to account for the control matchup if you wish to succeed in this Modern meta.
Stoneforge unban is a maybe, but more likely than it has been before. I don’t think we’ll see it unbanned so soon though. Ravnica is around the corner, and historically that has always introduced a glut of powerful multicolor cards. I’d wait to see their impact, and I bet so will WotC.
Green Sun’s Zenith ban was not about power, and people who clamor for its return do so not understanding the reason it was banned.
Preordain isn’t coming back, just play pauper or legacy if you want your blue cantrip fix.
OPINION: Ancient Stirrings ban is possible, but only because Tron is a negative influence and really a police deck the format doesn’t need. It skews control and midrange and allows the existence of hyper linear decks. Tron getting knocked down a peg, would ultimately a good thing for Modern growth.
While we’ve seen the emergence of a multitude of linear/aggressive decks we have also seen a blooming of fair decks as well. Hopefully some of the catchall answers we saw in the last Ravnica (dsphere, dreadbore, decay, verdict) come to light in this new one as well.
- Hour of Promise
- Solemnity
- Ramunap Excavator
- Abrade
- Claim // Fame
- Hollow One
- Shefet Dunes
These have all seen play in some lists that have done well, or will at least show up in the future. It is better for new cards that enter the format to help niche decks than power up format all-stars. We don't need tons of Fatal Push powered cards.Second of all, they have to revert back to good old GR Tron to even run Blood Sun reliably, losing recent tech of Fatal Push/Collective Brutality (making them softer to certain decks). In regards to Eldrazi Tron, I can't see them diluting their mana bases to run a sideboard card just to counter cards like Ghost Quarter.
I like Blood Sun, it's an interesting card that hits greedy fair decks and has weird build around merits. It also hates on Valakut which is fine by me. We'll see if it has any place in modern.
Burn, Storm, Affinity, etc. Plenty of decks race Tron/Titanshift no problem. If Tron/Titanshift uprise is sustained the meta will correct itself and the big baddies will be brought down, as we've seen time and time again. To say there are no natural predators is a false statement.
Would it be nice if fair decks had more interaction with big mana decks? Yes. I would like that. However, nothing off the ban list would help the majority of fair decks on this front. Field of Ruin was a good step in this direction, and hopefully we see more cards like it.
As always, instead of old and problematic cards, I'm in the camp of just waiting for new cards to roll into modern. We've seen Search for Azcanta and Opt make it into many blue lists this weekend. Slowly but surely Wizards is printing tools for those decks. An unban like Jace (senseless as that is with it helping none of the unfair matches) just limits the tools they can potentially print for modern.
To call a deck like Death and Taxes one with minimal interaction is laughable. Aside from some beater slots like Blade Splicer, most every other spell in the deck can interacts with the opponent in some way.
Not only that, but creature vs creature Magic is inherently more interactive than interaction on the stack. There are a lot more decision trees in terms of blocks/attacks than there are to put a spell on the stack in this format.
Playable cards =/= format staple all stars. Not every card has to as powerful as Fatal Push to be considered a playable card. That's a ridiculous standard.
For example, Cathartic Reunion/Insolent Neonate miss the top 50 in both lists, but are extremely relevant cards that make Dredge tick. These, by definition, are playable cards. The same is true of many cards that enter the format.
All Modern is really missing is a few generic answers. Barring that, most new cards that enter the format would be better off either supporting underdeveloped archetypes or new build arounds.
And for the record on bans, we don't need any bans and don't need any unbans. I'm against Stoneforge Mystic not because of her power, but the fact that she homogenizes every white/white splashing deck to look the same. She has the hidden cost of being a card that takes up 7+ slots. I'd rather white be shored up another way.
First of all, I don't believe this list of GPs is just modern events, so it's not like we can evaluate his performance with a certain deck in a certain format. Furthermore, even getting in the top 16/32 consistently as he does is pretty impressive for a style of play that has never been considered tier 1. If he can play a strategy that is considered weak and get consistent results from his career I find that pretty indicative.
Tell that to players like Craig Wescoe who always play the same variant of deck regardless of meta and still manage to top 8.
You can't discard lands to Paradoxical Outcome. Hell late game if your flooded, this is great way to turn all those duds into gas.
In terms of effect, it directly competes with:
Stonecloaker
Restoration Angel
of which I think both are better cards.