MTG Salvation

I'm very excited to see how Dominaria and the new core set impact the format. Play design input should start to kick in big time and give us plenty of new answer cards.

If nothing else, this Pro Tour is definitely proving that Young Pyromancer is the rightful addition to the unofficial power 2-drop creature cycle alongside Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic, Dark Confidant, and Snapcaster Mage

Wait, was Ferocidon really designed after Cat-blink was discovered? I thought sets are designed way further in advance than that and Cat-blink was admittedly not discovered until the full set was spoiled.

Attune most likely. Definitely not Whirler

I agree they won't ban Urza's Tower, and that's fair, I'm just pointing out how so many cards in the modern cardpool would suddenly become unplayable overnight if Tower was suddenly removed.

I cannot think of an example of another card which would invalidate so many other cards if it suddenly disappeared from the game.

Anyways, this is more of just a thought experiment than a call for any bans. I am fairly certain Wizards will not want to invalidate an entire archetype as doing so would cost them too many players.

Quote from mtgnorin »

Yeah, like cavern, like aether vial, like discard.... Soooo many decks around this examples too. Is this all not warping too?

Cavern would likely not invalidate any cards, as Unclaimed Territory was just printed, and they serve a similar enough role in enabling tribal decks

Discard? We need a specific card here so let's go with Thoughtseize. Does removing this card from the game cause any other cards to become unplayable? Death's Shadow? Even this I am not so sure on, whereas for Tower there are at least 5 cards which I am confident fall off the map.

Aether Vial maybe. Do you think it would suddenly make all merfolk, humans, and the Death and Taxes deck unplayable? I'm not sure. Merfolk can go UG and switch to Collected Company, humans can swap out Vial for Avacyn's Pilgrim and remain more or less the same. Death and Taxes would take the biggest hit IMO but which individual cards would no longer see play without Vial?

Honestly my suggestion for the next card (outside of any of the tron lands) to invalidate many others would probably be Ensnaring Bridge. I believe many of the staples in Lantern would no longer be modern playable without this card holding the deck together. A similar argument could be made for Lantern of Insight itself, but Lantern gone would not eliminate bridge, while the reverse is almost certainly true.

Other cards that come to mind: Mox Opal, Valakut the Molten Pinnacle, Eldrazi Temple

Quote from Earthbound21 »

Bloodbraid Elf, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic et al,. Do not in anyway make these decks better against or stop the decks that would play them losing to turn 3 Karn. Any one who is using the recent success of big mana to promote the unbanning of these cards is just ban mongering.

It is perfectly acceptable for midrange decks and controls to have bad matchups. Lopsided bad matchups even. That's part of being a big format. Even Miracles got crushed by 12 Post.

I think the argument stems from the fact that players are looking at things like Turn 3 Karn followed by turn 4 Ulamog and wondering why that is acceptable while Stoneforge Mystic or Bloodbraid Elf are considered too strong.

My attempt at a fixed version of Urza's Tower, because Tron lands will never be reprinted in standard

Temple of Muraganda
Land
T: Add C to your mana pool
T: Add CCC to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if you control 4 or more basic lands.

I got this idea from the Leech cycle in Invasion, except for this cycle you are disadvantaged for playing cards outside each one's color

Elvish Brawler 1G
Creature - Elf Warrior
Nongreen spells cost you 2 more to cast
Trample
4/4
(U)

Wave Glider 2U
Creature - Drake
Nonblue spells cost you 2 more to cast
Flying
4/3
(U)

Stalwart Champion 2W
Creature - Human Soldier
Nonwhite spells cost you 2 more to cast
Vigilance
4/5
(U)

Mogg Ignoramus R
Creature - Goblin
Nonred spells cost you 2 more to cast
Haste
2/2
(U)

Chthonic Horror 1B
Creature - Shade
Nonblack spells cost you 2 more to cast
B: ~ gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
2/2
(U)

Probably the one card I hate seeing the most in modern right now is Chalice of the Void.

As someone who is a big proponent of interaction, I feel like this card shuts it down too much.

I get that cards like this help to keep Turbo Xerox strategies like Grixis Shadow and Storm in check, but there are other ways to combat those decks without shutting them down completely. "soft" taxers like Thalia or Thorn of Amethyst and Rule of Law type cards work well enough to fight Xerox without completely blanking the majority of their deck.

Also, as someone who plays storm, I would gladly give up another card from that archetype in exchange for not having Chalice anymore in the format.

Do all of the factions get their own land like this?

It would be super sad to see Death's Shadow in the banlist. I don't think it is worth banning as much as unbanning Splinter Twin or Stoneforge Mystic. Banning the card Death's Shadow itself would be nothing short of incompetence and taking steps backwards in regards of format health and player trust. The DS strategy is powerful and as efficient as it gets in Modern. It doesn't win on T3 and goldfished T4 kills are against decks that many people hate playing against(like Tron and Valakut). It punishes you for trying to play solitaire and not caring about the board. As a bonus, it rewards you for playing boat loads of removal and powerful finishers like Planeswalkers.

My take is: Let's instead give it one more round to prove itself worthy of remaining as a viable strategy in Modern and unban Stoneforge Mystic to compensate and push a little more reactive decks. They can easily deal with her via Kolaghan's Command and even Tarfire if well timed. She will bring a new angle of attack and super interesting gameplay with the nowhere-to-be-seen Swords. Finally, it serves as an incentive to play control decks too(especially blue decks) even if Eldrazi and Abzan could potentially abuse her even more. That added with a good blue answer or CA spell and the format could be pretty well balanced.