I think Jace is pretty risky (as psyched as I am to get to play him in modern), but I also prefer a WotC that takes risks with the ban list. They have an accelerated timeline for the announcements, so if Jace doesn't work out, they can always reban him, and I much prefer that to a format where things take forever to be freed from the list. That said, I feel for people who dump money on a playset of whatever (in this case Jace) only to have him rebanned, but frankly, that's the risk you take with any card in modern (in any TCG, really).
Also, let's assume that WotC is trying to sell packs of M25 (I'm not conceding this is their reasoning for Jace, but hypothetical): Them messing with their current most popular format for 1 set seems risky, but also don't we want WotC to sell packs? They are a business, and magic stops making them money, the game will die very quickly.
I'll speak to my personal feelings on some of these things.
I got in to modern with UWR control, and eventually shifted to the various flavors of twin, while still coming back to control depending on the day. I really enjoyed the meta while twin was legal; twin just fit my play style. With it gone, I was definitely in the camp of 'modern sucks' for a while. I definitely think the format has improved since then, I've come to the realization that I just don't enjoy the format as much anymore. I know blue based control is viable, but I just don't enjoy playing against the current best decks (exception being DS, since that feels the most like a hybrid of control vs twin and control vs gbx).
Additionally, I felt like I could brew a little better when the meta was more stable in the twin days (keeping in mind I'm a terrible deck builder haha). When building a new deck I would come up with my core and then I would ask, "How do I deal with twin/affinity/jund etc?" And then proceed from there. Now there are too many angles of attack. When brewing, you are basically trying to do something linear and faster than those. I liked brewing interactive decks, so this is not good for me personally. So I say again, format is not for me, and that's fine. I've since made the dive in to legacy.
As for the matchup lotto idea: I think modern is guilty of this to some extent. Standard just doesn't have enough decks to make this a problem, and legacy has better universally useful cards/answers that you can win bad matchups without drawing hate. In modern, some matchups are defined by whether to see sideboard cards or not (I'm thinking specifically of uwx control vs dredge). It just feels bad to win or lose based on sideboarding. I think with enough games, the better player will come out on top, but there are a lot of 'bad feels' in modern for me. If you guys love the format, that's awesome. I want to love it again (really hoping for some fun unbans). I like deck diversity, but I like strategic diversity more, and I don't think a long standing, stable meta game is inherently bad. I enjoy those types of formats. I'm a current modern detractor, but if the format isn't for me going forward, that's fine. I don't like standard, but I won't ever complain that it should be changed to fit how I think it should be.
A common problem that I've seen with people who tend to dismiss this sort of harassment is they look at each event individually. "Oh, some guy made a lewd comment? Whatever, that's not a big deal." Since that one thing isn't a big deal, the hypothetical person here just ignores it and forgets it. Then the next one happens, and they do/say the same thing. They are ignoring the fact that for the person on the receiving end, this is the sum of years of comments, and that adds up.
Also, as a community, can we do away with the term SJW? If you see something *****ty, stand up and say something. It's not being a SJW, it's just being a decent human being. This isn't in response to anything specific, just felt like I wanted to say it.
I know you never have enough sb room for any meta, but it felt (emphasis on felt) like the answers you needed in 2015 were more universal or had utility beyond the deck you had them for. Since this was pre delve threats, decay was just a good answer to most things, not just twin. As far as brewing is concerned, with twin you had to worry about twin: splash a color for decay, run that red uncounterable spell (I'm blanking on the name) things like that. Now the question is, "what about scapeshift? and tron? and dredge? and storm?" This seems way tougher to go rogue than simply 'what about twin?'
I think we're saying the same thing, but representing the opposite sides of the coin. And as you say, this is all anecdotal. I just know that for me I haven't been psyched on modern for some time.
Twin actually did kill diversity. There were zero URx decks besides twin, and a twin unban with a storm ban would lead to zero URx decks besides twin, as opposed to our current jeskai flash/grixis shadow/storm existence. Just a quick reminder that there are decks that beat storm, like those other two URx builds. Again, just because storm beats someone's preferred deck does not make storm a juggernaut. I maintain that its low price point is the main reason storm is very popular, and when you have a significant portion of the players joining modern to play a cheap, good deck, that high play volume will lead to more high results.
Well this is just not true. We had Jeskai control (the more classic hard control deck as opposed to tempo style we have today), various flavors of delver, storm existed (in it's old school ascension style), grixis control, and rug scapeshift were all around. Even blue moon popped up from time to time.
I agreed with a bunch of Ingram's points, but saying SFM is unsafe is crazy to me. How is turn 3 batterskull/swords too strong when your opponent untaps and plays reality smasher? I'm not even sure if you'd be able to get skull down in the world of modern discard. People would just sandbag the thoughtseize/thought-knot and wait for you to fetch it up. There is so much artifact hate available in most top decks that the equipment wouldn't be much of a problem if it gets down. Even burn would just play more destructive revelry in the board to deal with it. I'm definitely bias, as I want to play me some stoneblade in modern, but like ancestral or SOTM, I think this is a case of people being overly paranoid to a card that will not have much negative impact to the format.
I'm on the side of no for GSZ. As others have said, it's relevant at every point in the game, and the fact that it shuffles itself back in to the deck ensures that you will continue to find it. Discard is a pretty lousy top deck when you get in to late game scenarios, unless both players are stockpiling cards. It seems to me that there is a 'fixed' version of GSZ in modern: Traverse the Ulvenwald. GSZ is always G+cmc of the creature, and so is Traverse once you have delirium. The fact that it requires delirium is so that you can't abuse it the same way you could GSZ. GSZ sort of feels like eye of ugin in a lot of ways: it gives certain decks inevitability. Granted you can counter or discard GSZ, but it's the same idea that if the game goes long, the one with access to GSZ is inherently at an advantage.
I think, as a community, we should be praising WotC for the GGT experiment. Sure it made for some bad tournaments for a few months, but we should encourage them to experiment with the ban list, and more importantly, take risks. If they get skittish because we attack them for unbanning a broken card, they will never be willing to release anything from the list. The accelerated schedule also allows them to react quickly if a card comes off the list and breaks the meta wide open. I'd rather a few bad events due to an unbanning rather than never allowing those cards to see the light of day.
If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
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Also, let's assume that WotC is trying to sell packs of M25 (I'm not conceding this is their reasoning for Jace, but hypothetical): Them messing with their current most popular format for 1 set seems risky, but also don't we want WotC to sell packs? They are a business, and magic stops making them money, the game will die very quickly.
1
I'll speak to my personal feelings on some of these things.
I got in to modern with UWR control, and eventually shifted to the various flavors of twin, while still coming back to control depending on the day. I really enjoyed the meta while twin was legal; twin just fit my play style. With it gone, I was definitely in the camp of 'modern sucks' for a while. I definitely think the format has improved since then, I've come to the realization that I just don't enjoy the format as much anymore. I know blue based control is viable, but I just don't enjoy playing against the current best decks (exception being DS, since that feels the most like a hybrid of control vs twin and control vs gbx).
Additionally, I felt like I could brew a little better when the meta was more stable in the twin days (keeping in mind I'm a terrible deck builder haha). When building a new deck I would come up with my core and then I would ask, "How do I deal with twin/affinity/jund etc?" And then proceed from there. Now there are too many angles of attack. When brewing, you are basically trying to do something linear and faster than those. I liked brewing interactive decks, so this is not good for me personally. So I say again, format is not for me, and that's fine. I've since made the dive in to legacy.
As for the matchup lotto idea: I think modern is guilty of this to some extent. Standard just doesn't have enough decks to make this a problem, and legacy has better universally useful cards/answers that you can win bad matchups without drawing hate. In modern, some matchups are defined by whether to see sideboard cards or not (I'm thinking specifically of uwx control vs dredge). It just feels bad to win or lose based on sideboarding. I think with enough games, the better player will come out on top, but there are a lot of 'bad feels' in modern for me. If you guys love the format, that's awesome. I want to love it again (really hoping for some fun unbans). I like deck diversity, but I like strategic diversity more, and I don't think a long standing, stable meta game is inherently bad. I enjoy those types of formats. I'm a current modern detractor, but if the format isn't for me going forward, that's fine. I don't like standard, but I won't ever complain that it should be changed to fit how I think it should be.
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Actually, Kess is fine with this. She doesn't target anything
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Also, as a community, can we do away with the term SJW? If you see something *****ty, stand up and say something. It's not being a SJW, it's just being a decent human being. This isn't in response to anything specific, just felt like I wanted to say it.
2
I think we're saying the same thing, but representing the opposite sides of the coin. And as you say, this is all anecdotal. I just know that for me I haven't been psyched on modern for some time.
2
Well this is just not true. We had Jeskai control (the more classic hard control deck as opposed to tempo style we have today), various flavors of delver, storm existed (in it's old school ascension style), grixis control, and rug scapeshift were all around. Even blue moon popped up from time to time.
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I'm on the side of no for GSZ. As others have said, it's relevant at every point in the game, and the fact that it shuffles itself back in to the deck ensures that you will continue to find it. Discard is a pretty lousy top deck when you get in to late game scenarios, unless both players are stockpiling cards. It seems to me that there is a 'fixed' version of GSZ in modern: Traverse the Ulvenwald. GSZ is always G+cmc of the creature, and so is Traverse once you have delirium. The fact that it requires delirium is so that you can't abuse it the same way you could GSZ. GSZ sort of feels like eye of ugin in a lot of ways: it gives certain decks inevitability. Granted you can counter or discard GSZ, but it's the same idea that if the game goes long, the one with access to GSZ is inherently at an advantage.
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1
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.