MTG Salvation

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Quote from Hezekai »

Unstable Reality U
Instant - Mythic

Return target nonland, nontoken permanent to the stack.
Draw a card.

Best design I have seen here in a while!
You could abuse the heck out of it with Eternal Witness in Eternal Command/Ruse decks. DAT CARD DRAW ENGINE!
So yeah it probably needs to be tweaked a bit:D

Hahah yeah so true. I've thought of two ways that make this card less broken but retain the uses I had envisioned for it:
The simplest solution is to remove the card draw.

Unstable RealityU
Instant - Mythic

Return target nonland, nontoken permanent to the stack.

Alternatively, something that keeps the card draw around but eliminates the problems associated with recasting it.

Unstable RealityU
Instant - Mythic

Return target nonland, nontoken permanent to the stack.
Draw a card. Exile Unstable Reality.

I'm undecided on which one I prefer. Either it can be snapcastered/witnessed back for use later on in the game or it just gets rid of itself but keeps the draw to allow for the exhilarating play of returning something to the stack then drawing into the counter.

I'd say ove the cantrip. The card super versatile and almost never dead anyway. In the worst case it gives an opposing creature summoning sickness in the best it deals with with annoying cards you could not Counter. Or you just play it for value on snapcaster or save one of your creature from removal.
That's still pretty good and blue usually doesn't Tools to deal with resolved threats favourably

Where is Path to Exile?

Quote from PasstheChips »

Whisperwood Elemental is like a smaller Grave Titan that can generate a lot of value. It also has boardwipe prevention in its second ability. Like most 5 drops probably too slow, but it looks fun at least.

Soulflayer also seems to have build around potential, and if Delve thus far has shown us anything, it's definitely a mechanic can make waves on any spell.

I can see finding Whisperwood Elemental a home in my Nykhtos Green Devotion deck. Five mana are often online on turn 3 and build in boardwipe protection is neat!

Talking about Sword of the Meek, when I think about it, it seems like an unban with pretty good potencial for the format.
A short analysis:
Sword of the Meek alone is rather bad, pretty bad to be honest. Thopter Foundry isn't what you would call a good card alone and as far as I know isn't even really playable in Tezzeret Control.
Together both cards are a solid combo that is usually hard to disrupt g1 (unless you play Abrupt Decay or hardcounters) but not really hard to hate out g2 and g3. You can use graveyard hate to exile Sword, artifact destruction and target Foundry or even use Illness in the ranks and concentrate your hate on the tokens and I think I can say every, I mean EVERY modern deck that wants to be a bit competitive already has some form of graveyard and artifact hate in the SB.
The combo in itself doesn't hurt moderns turn 4 rule (it isn't online until turn 3 and won't do anything that turn besides gaining 1 life and spawning a 1/1 token).

Which decks want to play the combo:
UBx Tezzerez Control: Really likes artifacts, already has multiple ways to dig for the pieces, can make use of the pieces even without having the other one (using Tezzeret or Thirst for Knowledge). It's a control deck (and even a pretty unique one, too) that's like Tier 2-3 right now so I can't see a reason against an unban here.
UWx Control Decks: They would get a nice combo finish that has a price: drawing only one part of the combo sucks hard. I honestly don't know how many pieces they would play but in my mind multiple copies wouldn't make much sense because drawing two swords without Foundry seems really really bad for a control deck (yeah they could use Thirst, too. But that lefts even less room for answers). So only one copy each together with Dig and maybe 1-2 Muddle the Mixture and that's it (everything else would turn it more and more into a combo deck anyway).
Third option I see would be the creation of a new combo deck. That wouldn't really help the format but I really can't see it braking it either. Abrupt Decay is a huge problem for the combo that would probably make a black splash for discard necessary.

That's a lot of theorycrafting though, so if you think there are more possible decks please tell!

Everybody says the card will make aggro less viable. I can understand that but an aggro deck should be able to win a game by turn 4 or 5 usually and by that time the combo won't even be online most of the times (if they power out Foundry and Sword on turn 2 and three, they have exactly one mana open to interact with you during these turn and that's not what you want to do against aggro).

Hey all here
seems to be like a bad time to start to play this deck, but I just discovered it and it's soo much fun to play.
But if Anger of the Gods should see really that much more play in the upcoming meta, how about a Burrenton Forge-Tender in the SB?
It costs only one and is therefore easily searched for with Chord and Safes all of our dear Finks, Voices and Dorks.
Opinions?

I largely agree with this article. It's why players like Craig Wescoe T8 a GP with a deck they've been playing for years. Or why Daniel Wong got to the Vegas T8 with Taking Turns. Or why Todd Stevens and his beloved Eldrazi Tron have so much recent success. Just take a look at some of the MTGO regulars who play their decks all the time and routinely repeat 5-0 performances in the Leagues, whether in this current metagame or in past ones. The format is significantly more skill-rewarding than many claim.

In Legacy, you have fewer matchups and overall less diversity, so skill plays out in choices on Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, FoW, Daze, Wasteland, Therapy, etc. These cards are hugely skill-tesitng, and the matchups between the top decks reflect the skill in using those cards effectively. In Modern, you don't have those same kinds of skill-testing cards (indeed, we don't have any of the above cards) but you have significantly more deck diversity. This requires more knowledge of more decks, their sideboards, your sideboarding plan against them, and your/their overall gameplan. It means you need to change how you use your cards every game.

I've watched the pros and vocal streamers that complain about variance, and when I see their games, I see endless misplays and small errors that result in losses. Slamming TS on T1 against decks with no significant T1 or T2 plays and then moaning about a topdeck that won the opponent the game. Mindlessly Bolting dorks before losing to Druid combo. Picking the wrong card off IoK/TS. Choosing the wrong mode on Esper Charm, K-Command, or Cryptic for the matchup. Killing a Baral and then tapping out with more removal in hand and getting wrecked by a T4 Electromancer into the combo after an opponent cantripped three times in the match. Keeping Affinity or Elves hands with no business spells against decks with sweepers. Making awful sideboard decisions like Leyline of Sanctity against Ad Nauseam. Choosing to stay on the play against discard decks like 8Rack. Endless misplays and misjudgments of opposing decks.

Then I watch the games of more technical pilots with deeper format knowledge and see them pick up huge margins from format knowledge. They don't tilt, complain, or blame external factors, and they break down all their choices against opposing possibilities. I don't remember the player, but I recently watched a game where a streamer was in G2 or G3 against a Storm deck. Without even looking up the opposing list, he was worried about the opponent boarding in a Blood Moon plan B and he mulliganed his first hand because it didn't have fetchlands. He kept his second and fetched an Island to Serum Visions on the draw. Sure enough, the opponent rituals into a Moon on their second turn. This is where players in that first category I described above would rage about swingy Modern cards but this guy already knew it and already had the out. Modern needs more of that play and clarity, not the complaining.

Quote from Lilijuana »

Their reason for banning probe was as succinct and to the point as it gets...and correct. I don't see how tournament reports are necessary when they are addressing how the card influences gameplay.

You mentioned the Delver deck above. It runs 17 lands and essentially 56 cards b/c Probe enables such a composition to be viable when normally it would not.

This rationale is arbitrary and applies to dozens of cards in the format. Gameplay reasons are all subjective. That is why we should prefer objective reasons like T4 rule violations and format diversity violations. Name a Tier 1 staple in Modern and I'm sure half a dozen people in this thread could knit together a rhetorical argument about why that card is busted because it is too strong in gameplay. We cannot have Wizards start banning cards for those reasons because it's completely unpredictable and doesn't necessarily improve the format.

Here's the Probe rationale I would have written, assuming I had their data:

"Looking at the results of Modern games on MTGO, we found that no single top-tier deck was consistently winning before turn four and violating the turn four rule. That said, many players complained about how fast the format was. We did a deeper dive and also found that too many overall games were ending before turn four as a result of numerous fast, linear, aggressive strategies, although no single deck was to blame. Rather than ban individual cards from each of these decks (no one of which was alone in violation), we looked at cards shared between all of them to decrease the overall number of games won before turn four. Probe was the most offensive of those shared cards, appearing in the greatest percentage of pre-turn four wins relative to any other shared card.

This finding is supported by Probe's gameplay: it gives perfect information, draws a card, fuels delve, and even pumps creatures for basically no investment. Although it is unfortunate other decks will suffer from Probe's removal (e.g. Delver, U/R Storm), we believe Probe's banning will have a net positive on the format as it overall decreases the chance of fast, top-tier decks winning before turn four. Those decks will likely also find replacements and stay viable. In the interest of the turn four rule, Gitaxian Probe is banned."

This took me ten minutes to write and probably summarizes Wizards' analysis of the card. It also would have preemptively addressed most of the anger around the ban.

The anger at this announcement is unusually overblown and unwarranted, even considering the general Modern outcry at such changes. Although there are definitely some legitimately scary elements of the ban update, most people are complaining about elements that are totally fine, or even heartening.

The GGT ban is perfectly fine. It keeps the deck a top-tier contender without leaving it a Tier 1 mainstay. This lets other GY decks return (remember old faithful Abzan Company?) and lets everyone free up SB slots to fight other decks. The "scary" part about this ban is that it's a reversal of a previous ban, which is unprecedented but not really that scary. I'm fine with companies and organizations changing their minds based on new realities. In these regards, the GGT ban gets top marks from me.

Probe ban gets a B-. Yes, it's effective at taking a little bit off the top of most fast decks without killing any of them outright. In that regard, it's a solid A. Unfortunately, it does this at the expense of very fair Delver decks, which were great for format health. That's C-, unintended consequence ban territory. More importantly, these kinds of silly bans just underscore Modern's problems: WHERE THE HECK ARE OUR GENERIC ANSWERS AND POLICING CARDS/STRATEGIES?? You don't see these absurd bans in Legacy because the format has internal regulation from cards, not external regulations from bans. I'm not saying we need Legacy's exact answers, but we do need answers and we needed them a year ago. Push is a good step in the right direction, but it can't be the final step. If we don't get these kinds of cards, we'll keep stomaching more corner-case bans like Probe and keep inciting even more ban mania and format instability.

So, if the bans themselves aren't that terrible, what's the real problem?

The problem is the update itself. It doesn't cite tournament finishes, doesn't refer back to format guidelines and rules, doesn't anticipate objections to the bans, and overall doesn't build format confidence. It looked like the article was thrown together in less than an hour, when I'm sure Wizards did mountains of testing and analysis before deciding on some of those bans. If Wizards communicated this to their audience, people wouldn't be so up in arms about these changes. Especially if they threw us a bone about how they want to see how the new format shakes out before deciding on possible unbans. That would have been great! Instead, we got a very elementary update with extremely basic reasons. No wonder people are upset: Wizards hasn't done anything to try and build confidence after a big banlist shakeup.

I hope we get some clarification in the coming weeks. I'm sick and tired of delving through AMAs and Twitter posts to figure out Wizards' banlist policy and process. This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to advocate on behalf of the format and entice players to join. With ban mania everywhere, it's hard to stay evidence-based and level-headed, particularly when Wizards doesn't give us any tools to help that fight.

I actually wasn't a huge fan of exarch. The key situations came up slightly less frequently than the mana caused problems.