Has no ETB/LTB, but that no-drawback, evasive body is nice. The activated ability doesn't seem especially abusable in cube, but digging and/or binning recursive black creatures seems decent.
I wasn't sure I'd like Oath until I drafted it. The most fun cube deck I've drafted so far was a UB control shell with Reanimate and Oath as win conditions.
Granted, Oath rarely makes it to main decks. There are too many good small creatures that you wouldn't want to hit with Oath. You have to get a certain critical mass of good noncreature spells.
Just countering triggered abilities makes this seem a little limited. Could we see it hit activated abilities as well?
Alternately/additionally, could this exile spells if it counters their triggered abilities? It would make it a cleaner counter to Storm, Cascade, Eldrazi, etc.
And I was worried about it being too effective. This originally had Split second, too.
Turn to Trickshares - WU
Instant
Counter target activated or triggered ability. If a spell's ability is countered that way, exile that spell. If a permanent's ability is countered this way, that permanent loses all abilities, then exile that permanent, and its controller gains life equal to its converted mana cost.
Counter target triggered ability. If a permanent's ability is countered this way, that permanent loses all abilities, then exile that permanent, and its controller gains life equal to its converted mana cost.
I'm not sure that using only quantitative data gathered from match/tourney/challenge/daily/etc. results is the best way to balance a format. Even if we had those numbers, I could envision a hypothetical format where one or two decks have a disproportionately high share of the metagame, but more players are having fun playing, even if they aren't winning tournaments. The only way to get those results is formal playtesting and focus groups. We lack access to that, too.
But Wizards might know. Maybe they're right, and the kinds of mechanics and interactions I liked in the past are unacceptable in Modern Magic, and the kinds of games some posters on this forum like to play aren't welcome, either.
Generally, answers prevent mechanical degeneracy. New players do not have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of the game mechanics to grok most degenerate deck strategies, so they initially won't appreciate the presence of answers in a given format. Countermagic is even more punishing than black removal in that it prevents ETBs. Granted, I'm no fan of big bodies with stapled-on ETBs, but whatever.
The problem with answers for Modern isn't that they don't exist. As @LeoTzu clearly showed in his response, WotC has been willing to give us plenty of removal spells over the past few years. Hell Fatal Push is probably one of the most influential cards on Modern since the format's inception.
However there is an issue that is also pointed out. All of these answers are in black. What sort of interaction does White, Blue, Red, or Green get? Honestly next to nothing. Black is the colour that gets all the answers in Modern, while it seems the other colours get the cards that need to be answered. It's a bit of a colour instability really.
All colors have interactions with resolved nonland permanents. Black's creature/planeswalker removal might be most relevant in today's metagame, though.
Personally -- and I know my opinion is unpopular -- I feel like blue's stack interaction is somewhat weak, but then again, I started playing in 1995.
I do think the format would be better without chalice but with counterspell, simply because i find prison cards boring but regular counterspells more interesting
Couldn't agree more with this.
That said i would not ban anything in modern right now. I would keep my eye on storm as it can and does often win turn 3 and it is requires a lot of steps in a single turn to go off, something most opponents hate to sit through
I haven't seen anyone make this point yet, but I think Legacy Storm feels "better" to lose to because Tendrils only requires about half the storm count of Grapeshot. You don't have to wait around quite as long.
Okay, so that appears to be Jund placing 3rd in Louisville on 16 Sep and 1st in Dallas today. Bobs, Goyfs, Scoozes, Lilianas, a Chandra, and similar spell packages including Push.
"My local meta is fine, therefore the format is fine" is also something we heard a lot of during Eldrazi Winter.
Sure, it is, but only in the context of their LGS metagame or MTGO. For most people, that's their only experience of Modern. I would disapprove of a populist balancing policy (I prefer balancing based primarily on the top tier of play), but to discount that experience entirely is silly.
Edit: This post was in response to the original "not a solid or supportable argument." wording.
If combo (Storm and Scapeshift) decks are truly the problem with the Modern format today, then I'd argue the best solution isn't to ban Scapeshift, Valakut, or cards with the Storm triggered ability, but rather to print/reprint better combo-specific answers for control decks, which have traditionally been intended to prey on combo. See, e.g., Ah Yes. Very Standard., which, unless something has changed over the past few years, probably also applies to WotC's goals in developing the Modern metagame.
Wizards has shown that they do not need to follow any specific criteria for banning pretty much anything (especially if it represents something they don't like). If whatever they feel like banning does not follow explicit patterns of past bannings, they will just pull some explanation out of thin air and ban it anyway. What are we going to do about it? Stop them?
I don't think Storm deserves a ban, but I would no be surprised in the least bit to see something like a card from Storm banned before the next PT, as part of their "totally not a shake up" shake up. Until that announcement though, I think we can just expect "No Changes."
Gee, this post is so subtly worded that I "totally can't tell" what you're alluding to...
Well, they're not wrong. I never played the deck in question, but I don't think it should have been banned. Then again, WotC doesn't care what I think, nor do they care what anyone except maybe some promotional or ex-promotional players think. I thought this thread was for expressing opinions...
I said this on the Storm thread and got infracted for talking about bans outside of this thread, so I'll say it here:
How can a combo deck like storm be TIER1 in a field where there is a tier1 deck packing 4 chalices main, a tier1 deck packing 4 eidolons main, and another tier1 deck packing 6 1CMC discard spells, 6 removal spells and 3 counterspells along with cheap big clocks???
The answer is: a super overpowered deck that can still have a decent win% against those 3 decks while it ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS all the other decks.
I haven't played much Modern lately because I don't really like the metagame ...
... but I don't think I've read a better defense of the format's health. If Storm is powerful, but there are several other powerful decks keeping it in check to the extent that no single deck is clearly superior, isn't that a best-case metagame? Furthermore, isn't Tier 1 decks having good matchups against Tier 2 and below exactly how tiers work?
You could still be correct, but I haven't seen good reasoning yet.
Granted, Oath rarely makes it to main decks. There are too many good small creatures that you wouldn't want to hit with Oath. You have to get a certain critical mass of good noncreature spells.
Turn to Trickshares - WU
Instant
Counter target activated or triggered ability. If a spell's ability is countered that way, exile that spell. If a permanent's ability is countered this way, that permanent loses all abilities, then exile that permanent, and its controller gains life equal to its converted mana cost.
Instant
Counter target triggered ability. If a permanent's ability is countered this way, that permanent loses all abilities, then exile that permanent, and its controller gains life equal to its converted mana cost.
But Wizards might know. Maybe they're right, and the kinds of mechanics and interactions I liked in the past are unacceptable in Modern Magic, and the kinds of games some posters on this forum like to play aren't welcome, either.
Personally -- and I know my opinion is unpopular -- I feel like blue's stack interaction is somewhat weak, but then again, I started playing in 1995.
I haven't seen anyone make this point yet, but I think Legacy Storm feels "better" to lose to because Tendrils only requires about half the storm count of Grapeshot. You don't have to wait around quite as long.
If WotC is worried about 1 CMC spells ruling Modern, then there's another, very narrow spell any deck can play: Mental Misstep
Because Chalice of the Void hits a lot more than just 1 CMC cards.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=116053
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=116409
Are the Fun Police back, or is this variance?
Edit: This post was in response to the original "not a solid or supportable argument." wording.
... but I don't think I've read a better defense of the format's health. If Storm is powerful, but there are several other powerful decks keeping it in check to the extent that no single deck is clearly superior, isn't that a best-case metagame? Furthermore, isn't Tier 1 decks having good matchups against Tier 2 and below exactly how tiers work?
You could still be correct, but I haven't seen good reasoning yet.