@socketto
What is the best graveyard hate to have?
Surgical Extraction, just because it has so many broad applications. As for strict graveyard hate, nothing beats Rest in Peace when you're on the play.
If someone has the power of luck on their side and isn't able to make white mana, maybe Leyline of the Void as another possible option? It is, at least, another thing besides Surgical that can fight turn 1 phoenixes? Only really works when it's in the opening hand though for the key times against most Modern graveyard decks though. Seems like it would be risky to rely on trying to mulligan to it, especially against Phoenix which has other plans like Thing in the Ice.
Reading all these LD cards gave me a nifty idea for one:
Forced Mining1R Sorcery
Destroy target land an opponent controls. That player creates two colorless Treasure artifact tokens with “{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”
This way, the player on the receiving end can still cast things for a few more turns as they dig for a replacement land, and they're even ramped slightly. On the other hand, if you stick Stony Silence first, Forced Mining becomes an insanely good true Sinkhole.
I like the basic idea, but perhaps something more like this:
Mad MiningRR Sorcery
Destroy target land. It's controller creates two tapped colorless Treasure artifact tokens with “t, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”
That way you can potentially use it on yourself, made the mana cost a bit harder to help compensate for the self-targeting option and the tokens coming in tapped (so you can't use it right away to make up the cost of casting the spell while also destroying a tapped land from that turn. Your opponent would usually untap with them at the start of their next untap step since it's a sorcery.
Edit: Adding a new card idea pair:
SecrecyU Instant
You may reveal this card from your opening hand, if you do, you have hexproof from the start of the game until you play your first land.
Choose one -
* Counter target spell that targets you.
* Scry 3.
PrivacyW Instant
You may reveal this card from your opening hand, if you do, you have hexproof from the start of the game until you play your first land.
Choose one -
* Counter target spell that targets you.
* Gain 4 life.
That land would be one of the worst lands ever printed. The only redeeming factor is that you made it legendary so some poor sap couldn’t have 2 in play to really screw him or herself so royally. Mana Confluence is so much less of a downside than sculpting your opponent’s hand when tapping mana.
That is true for the vast majority of decks, but there are potential decks out there that play cards like, say Temple Bell. Of course, those kind of decks tend to only actually work against certain kinds of opposing decks, so it's a rather extreme meta call, and probably a bad decision anyway. I guess I should have thought harder and tried to figure out a different sort of land idea to use as an example.
I wonder if they'll come up with a new interesting mana-fixing land, maybe something like:
Reverse-scry Realm Legendary Land t: Add , if you do, each opponent may scry 1. t: Add one mana of any color, if you do, each opponent may scry 3.
I really hope they do some interesting things with sorcery and enchantment card types in particular, a lot of those are harder to get modern viable ones through standard, due to lack of proper hate in mono-colored decks for enchantments, and for sorcery spells, just power level for the mana cost differences in how it works compared to instant speed spells in modern compared to standard. Planeswalkers, creatures, lands, and instants all seem to make it through to modern with current standard design principles much easier, although I could be wrong.
I'm also wondering about how much multi-color will be in the set. I actually hope they lean on mono-colored and are relatively light on the multi-colored stuff, even if I do want some nice multi-colored stuff, like, say, enemy 'command' spells (Kolaghan's Command being an ally color example).
I also hope they do some fun stuff with creature types on the creatures that aren't specifically designed to slot into specific tribal decks, playing around with more rarely seen creature types and getting good art for them and doing interesting art and flavor for it that might be more rarely seen in standard or upcoming Standard sets that are more flavor restrictive (due to specific worlds) or more generic fantasy (for semi-beginner products like core sets).
I don't think we need quite Swords or Daze or Planar Void. Counterspell is certainly in line with what we need, but I think we could get a 2 drop variation on swords (perhaps giving life based on CMC rather than power if they want to mix things up), something like void would also be fine at 2 cmc, just black's version of Rest in Peace that doesn't rely on leyline opening hands, and I think there are a variety of ways more useful than daze they could deal with the sort of early plays and emergencies that is made for. Heck, counterspell itself isn't neccesarily needed, something that counters cmc 3 or 4 or less would probably do the job as well (I don't think prohibit would be sufficient though). I really hope they do things properly for Horizons and get things like that though.
I don't think KCI is the best unban choice, seems a little too eggsy, but I suspect Stoneforge and Twin would be fine if the answers in the format were set up right in Horizons, and some more turn 4 combos besides twin would be nice as well. I'm not sure terminus needs to be banned so much as that there should be options good enough that control decks don't rely on luck, or things get banned until proper 4 cmc sweepers or some of the partial 3 cmc ones become sufficient.
As implied by others, combo should be the fastest type of deck in the format, if allowed to goldfish, but slightly unreliable in that speed, with the target win turn if slightly disrupted being turn 4, with pre-turn-4 wins being extremely unlikely and generally only possible if allowed to goldfish, but still unlikely even then, aggro should be slightly slower but more reliable, winning no earlier than turn 5, with turn 4 wins possible with average draws if allowed to goldfish, and pre-turn-4 wins basically impossible even with goldfishing, or at least far less likely than combo. Control decks should never be winning before turn 6, although most of the time if they are going to win is likely determined around turn 5 outside of control vs. control mirror matches and similar such situations, based on how much they've disrupted the opponent's gameplan and built up advantages. These turn points are only valid if Modern remains a 'turn 4 format' rather than wizards deciding to allow it to be a turn 3 or turn 2 format or something.
Still it should go something like this, combo is fastest, and defeats aggro more often than it loses to aggro, because aggro isn't quite as fast and doesn't have as much disruption to stop the combo from going off. Combo loses more often to control because it is weak to disruption, despite it's speed (control currently has trouble with this side of things due to insufficiently broad answers and relatively weird combo state in the meta). Control loses to aggro because aggro is more reliable and less vulnerable to disruption thanks to more redundant cards that basically do the same thing and don't rely on specific combinations, but still faster than control can handle even when disrupted.
Currently however, a lot of the wins are pre-turn-4, and a lot of the decks are some weird hybrid of combo, tempo, and midrange that are oddly redundant and reliable for any of those archetypes, and win in ways that more closely resemble aggro-strategies, but get their power from things closer resembling combo strategies, but too reliable and fast for them to be fair as combo strategies in the current format based on the 'turn 4' rule ideal.
Buffing answers could help control gain an edge, if the answers are properly set up and deal properly with the combo elements of the existing decks, and make real aggro needed to take down those control and have the space to invade the format without being overwhelmed by faster combo.
I'm not really sure about all this though, since I'm still a little fuzzy headed due to being sick.
Thought Scour targeting yourself would see some play in the same sort of decks. I mean, I've seen that with Thought Scour, but not as often as I'd think if the graveyard aspect was the only thing making FL see the play it does.
Thought Scour is a 4x staple of both Phoenix and GDS, decks which use the card for its benefit to the graveyard. Dredge doesn't play it because they don't/can't reliably make blue mana to actually cast it. If they could cast it, they absolutely would. It puts two things into the GY and draws AFTERWARDS, meaning you could hit a Dredger off the first two, and then Dredge with your draw.
Nevermind then, I've just not been thinking clearly I guess since I have a cold.
The card selection in Faithless Looting is completely unusable for the majority of decks if they aren't abusing the graveyard. This is evidenced by literally no decks every playing this card who are not abusing the graveyard in some way. So the issue here is graveyard abuse, not Faithless Looting. And it will continue to be a problem as long as Wizards keeps printing things which abuse the grave yard, especially for free and uncounterable GY interactions like Chill and Phoenix.
If it was really that graveyard focused, I feel like we'd see cards like Tome Scour or Thought Scour targeting yourself would see some play in the same sort of decks. I mean, I've seen that with Thought Scour, but not as often as I'd think if the graveyard aspect was the only thing making FL see the play it does. I think it's the combination of card selection, graveyard feeding and flashback that puts it over the edge. It's not good enough at card selection to really see play outside of graveyard stuff, partly because it's net negative cards during the initial cast from the hand, but with graveyard play, it's almost like card selection for the graveyard too, since you are picking not just from your top cards but also from your hand.
There is no way around a Looting ban. The card is way too powerful.
People are packing a bunch of gy hate and dredge still has a 56% winrate. That is ridicolous
Much like my view of Probe, I find it ironic that a card which has been legal in Modern for nearly the entirety of the existence of the format, is suddenly broken. But nobody seems to address that the reason why it's "broken" is specifically due to newprintings that abuse free, uncounterable graveyard abilities.
Eh, I disagree. It's card selection and graveyard feeding was always broken, at least for the mana costs involved, it's just that the card wasn't that much more powerful than it's costs.
Card selection being too powerful for it's costs is hard to detect, outside of that ones that are fair for their costs don't see much play, because the format is too fast for them and the decks they get put in have often been lacking in density of what the card selection tools can dig up, as well as the issue of cheating in paper magic. It's rare for decks that aren't highly reliant on specific cards or are doing something weird like a combo to play much card selection. Card selection has gotten better over time in the format as the number of viable powerful options in a lot of archetypes has grown, making it easier to dig to something that can do well against more consistent decks that had better card pools from earlier in the format.
Graveyard feeding being too powerful is hard to detect because basically only the stuff that is too powerful is played since the start of the format, because graveyard stuff itself wasn't that powerful. Having too strong of enablers means that when decent graveyard stuff is printed in sufficient mass, they start breaking things, even if they served as life-support beforehand, but it increases in power rapidly as more stuff gets printed that is format viable without the stronger than it should be feeding.
Faithless looting isn't too much over the edge, but I think it's enough so that I wouldn't blame the things it enables too easily. This doesn't means such things are automatically fair and it's the culprit, but I'd hesitate to automatically blame the things it enables, especially when most of their other enablers aren't nearly as early game or reliable, and don't see as much play in as many different decks.
EDIT: And as you mention, there's also the possibility that they print "strictly better" cards. I wouldn't anticipate this happening very broadly. Maybe Counterspell pushes Mana Leak and Remand further out of the format, but those cards aren't widely played at the moment anyway. Similar to #1 above, I wouldn't anticipate this happening to a large portion of the current staples. Remember that it's designed as a draft set so there will be a lot of chaff that doesn't make its way into competitive Modern.
Yeah, I also doubt any actual staples will see something strictly better, but some things that decks might want to be able to do but currently don't because the things that do so have to high cmc or are to narrow but would be playable if they did something extra or had modal options was more what I was thinking of when it comes to strictly better. Of course, Mana Leak and Remand aren't actually strictly worse than counterspell, due to the more color restricted casting cost on counterspell even if modern's color fixing is good enough that such usually shouldn't matter, and in remand's case the card draw and some potential clever trickery or weirdness that remand's bouncing might allow. An example I can think of might be something like Abrade, except it exiles the artifacts in question or the creatures if they die that turn.
I'm wondering how Horizons will affect prices of existing cards. It's hard to know until the spoilers, but even without reprinting existing cards, it can still affect their prices.
After all, some decks may find cards in it suit them slightly better than certain cards currently in the deck (even if they aren't strictly better, and other decks with that card would still use it), which could cause those cards to turn up for sale, some decks could be made more viable by new inclusions which could result in people buying other cards from those decks, some cards could see strictly better versions turn up and plummet in price, some decks could see enough new hate against them or decks that prey on them rising in the metagame or being created based on the new cards and become less popular with their pieces dropping in demand, and so on.
It's probably good that the shock-lands are currently in print, given the potential for Modern Horizons to increase the popularity of the format. Although of course, that could only make the pressure on the fetch-lands worse, so if that does happen, I hope they'd quickly reprint those in large numbers somehow outside of Standard.
Mana ReversalU Instant
Exile target spell with converted mana cost 4 or less. It's controller untaps a number of lands equal to it's converted mana cost. At the start of it's owner's next upkeep, return the exiled spell to it's owner's hand.
Exile Mana Reversal.
I'd also kind of like there to be a mono blue 2 drop draw creature, since blue is supposed to be better at draw than white or green, maybe something like:
Levitating Bookshelf1U Creature - Wall
Defender
Flying
When Levitating Bookshelf enters the battlefield, draw a card. 0/4
Adding flying to the Omens/Blossoms setup so it can block other flyers and get evasion in decks that can turn walls into attackers, and since flying is in blue's color pie.
I'd kinda like for something _like_ containment priest. But perhaps something that isn't human type, so maybe something like:
Containment Eye1W Creature - Hommunculus
Flash
If a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead. 1/3
The flash and ability needs to stay the same, and probably the mana cost too, but the p/t and creature type can be different, to avoid powering up some of the modern tribal decks like spirits and humans. Using a less tribal heavy creature type like hommunculus, avatar, or kor seems like a good idea.
Not all of them are needed of course, and many might not have much chance of real modern playability, but a number could easily fill in holes in modern's card pool in terms of what various colors or things to do involve, and some could be seriously helpful for some decks or sideboards.
I'd also kinda like to see a variant on Swords to Plowshares, but I think it's a bit too strong, however, I think white's 2 drop removal space is a bit lacking in Modern, so I could easily see something in that mana space working, something along the lines of:
Sabers to Latershares1W Instant
Exile target creature. It's controller gains life equal to it's converted mana cost.
I thought using CMC rather than power might be a nice variant to set it distinct for the lifegain, as well as making it stronger against most tokens type stuff, but I think some decks would be willing to pay life and 1 extra mana rather than give an opponent a basic land due to Path to Exile, while others might want them both for 5-8 pieces of modern viable white removal.
Some other things I'd like to see in the format include:
1 drop blue and 1 drop white prowess creatures of similar level of playability to Monastery Swiftspear, likely involving flying for blue, but I'm not sure what would work best for white.
A just blue 1 drop hexproof creature, along the lines of Slippery Bogle, and Gladecover Scout, for potential for replacing gladecover in a non-green bogles deck or creating a bant boggles deck with more critters or something. Not sure if it should be a merfolk or some other type that is more rarely seen, like crab or turtle or octopus or something.
Some kind of thing inspired by mother of runes, but perhaps using something more like a combination of hexproof and indestructible, rather than protection, maybe with an extra or two to make it closer in power level to protection, but as a mono-white 2 drop, rather than a 1 drop, to make it a bit more reasonable and let it have a better base body than MoR.
Mono-White's version of Reclamation Sage, perhaps with a harder mana cost like 1WW in exchange for some extras, like being a 1/4 vigilance or something.
Mono-Red's variation on this sort of thing, but only against artifacts, it should probably still be a 3 drop, since artifacts are often also creatures, and getting rid of artifacts is often treated as slightly more intensive mana cost wise than enchantments, so it probably shouldn't just be a variant on War Priest of Thune except red and artifacts rather than white and enchantments, but being higher cmc than that and not as flexible as reclaimation sage or the above noted white thing means perhaps it should get something extra, like:
Smeltsinger1RR Creature - Dwarf Rogue
Haste, Menace
When Smeltsinger enters the battlefield, you may destroy target artifact. 2/3
Might also be nice to have a mono-blue thing that can draw two cards at instant speed for 3 cmc, rather than being trapped in esper for esper charm for that kind of effect. Maybe a 1UU mana cost with no alternate modes like esper charm has would be fair?
I'd also like to see some lower cmc blue non-artifact cards that generate artifact tokens for a possible sort of Shape Anew deck as a cute variant to polymorph decks.
I'd like to see something for 0 turn countering, something along the lines of:
PrepardnessU Instant
Counter target spell with converted mana cost 1 or less.
You may cast Prepardness without paying it's mana cost if you don't control any lands. If you do, lands you play enter the battlefield tapped and can't be untapped until your next end step.
This would be more fair than something like Mental Misstep, since it still costs you your first turn's mana, and can only be cast for 'free' before you've played any lands (unless something weird is going on like land destruction/sacrifice), but can still let some decks do potentially crutial counters of opponent on the play turn 1 counterspelling, such as if you care a lot about keeping your hand secret and your opponent is playing Thoughtseize, or against a turn 1 Faithless Looting in game 2 vs. Phoenix when you feel unlucky and they didn't mulligan.
I'd also like to see cards to complete searching for 3 cmc of various card types, finishing the 'cycle' of Fabricate, Idyllic Tutor, and Call the Gatewatch. I think 2G for creature searching, since creatures and summoning themes tend to be a green thing more than other colors in this context typically, 2B for sorcery searching, since the slow spellcasting of elaborate spells in powerful rituals (not MtG rituals) seems a very black thing, ironically, I could see this one also being an instant, since searching for cards is already in black's color pie, or mabye being dropped to 1B mana cost, and finally instant spells 'rapid cast battle magic' would be 2R. Perhaps names like Summoner's Tutor, Spellcaster's Tutor, and Battlemage's Tutor?
Some more non-basic hate and grave hate in various colors, especially ones that don't have it outside of artifacts as much for modern viable levels, including forms that fit into various types of modern decks, doing their things alongside incidental hate, similar to how Destructive Revelry plays into burn or aggro strategies while still being effective hate against artifacts and/or enchantments. This stuff would be low cmc stuff, and more focused along the ways their colors do it, unlike various artifacts used for similar purposes, since a lot of the graveyard combo is fast, and tron can potentially come online in turn 3 for the opponent, which is when you are at 2 cmc if you were on the draw. It doesn't have to destroy the lands for nonbasic land hate, it could do things like Stensia Innkeeper or a single target rather than board version of From the Ashes or a Spreading Seas type effect or various other sorts of options. Grave-hate similarly doesn't have to exile, it could put things shuffled or onto the bottom of libraries, or make graveyards inaccessible in various ways. The main idea here is to fill out more options for different decks and archetypes and color combinations and make the hate cards fit more smoothly into their strategies than some of the more generic options we currently have like Relic of Progenitus. Some of the weaker effects like Stensia Innkeeper tapdown type nonbasic hate could be set up to have stronger side-benefits to the normal strategy or work against more opposing strategies through multiple options or something.
I'd kinda like a Vindicate effect at a modern playable CMC. I think it could work more fairly in modern with a harder mana cost, like WBR which would avoid it slotting straight into some kind of BGx midrange decks as easily so long as it doesn't have both b and g in it's mana cost. Another possibility is going up to 4 cmc and getting a worthwhile extra, like drawing a card or gaining a bit of life and causing the opponent to lose a bit of life. I don't think Vindicate itself is necessarily the best choice for Modern, it's a bit too flexible for something that can also destroy lands, and 2 colors including white and black are a bit too easy to fit into various decks for a 3 cmc version of the effect.
I'd also like to see more stuff that goes into white weenie in white, more stuff that goes into generic tempo decks in blue, more quirky sideboard stuff in red like we've started seeing with stuff like Harsh Mentor and Blood Sun, more interesting potent 'early' (lower cmc than usual) or somewhat off-color stuff for a life payment or creature sacrifice in black, and more hasty stompy creatures or hatebears in green.
I's also like to see more ways to interact with the stack outside of blue, like green and white giving certain things temporary hexproof, red perhaps creating a sort of punisher type effect where they can cancel what they are doing or take damage, green countering abilities, perhaps repeatably (in contrast to blue countering spells), and maybe black and red being able to turn spells on the stack into their advantage, perhaps by dealing damage or creating tokens under their own control related to the opponent's spell's cmc. Maybe black could 'counter' a non-zombie, non-spirit opponent's creature spell and cause the opponent to just get a spirit token with the abilities of the countered creature + flying while the black player gets a zombie token with the p/t of the countered creature? Maybe black and red could be allowed to counter enchantments, even if they can't remove existing ones, and black counter artifacts?
I'd also like to see more things like Aura Barbs, but lower cmc, for red against enchantments and black against enchantments and/or artifacts. Things that penalize an opponent for having permanents that the colors involved can't get rid of in a relatively strong way that could make decent sideboard cards in mono-colored decks.
Edit:
I'd also like to see something in blue for creature removal-ish effect for Modern, something like this, somewhat inspired by Reality Shift:
False Reflector1U Instant
Exile target creature. It's controller creates a 2/4 blue illusion creature token with flying and defender.
It would give the opponent a nice defensive creature, letting the blue deck stall well, but thoroughly getting rid of the removed creature, and do it at the right timing in the game for Modern, and be particularly effective for control decks that eventually play creatures with stats at least 4/3 or that don't rely on creature based finishers. It gives such a relatively generous token because the removal is out of blue's color pie, but the polymorph-ish effect is within it, as is illusions and flying, and can even be used on your own creatures to make a more defensive version in a pinch if the situation calls for it like hexproof opposing creatures. But since the token has defender, it avoids hurting as many decks trying to play it as some similar cards like Reality Shift or Pongify. Since it exiles the original, it's also more of a flavor hit for me for these kind of effects than things like Pongify, since it's weird when something that is transformed can also be reanimated from the graveyard or something weird like that.
Boltrunner2R Creature - Elemental (C)
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 3 to any target.
Evoke R 1/1
Hax! I think you'd have to get rid of the flash and make it target player, maybe player or planeswalker, for this to be reasonable.
Edit: adding some more card ideas of my own-
Simic Command1UG Instant
Choose two -
Destroy target artifact with converted mana cost 5 or less.
Exile target enchantment.
Untap target permanent, it gains hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. If it's a creature, it gets +1/+2 and flying until end of turn.
Scry 1, then draw a card.
Boros Command1WR Instant
Choose two -
Exile target artifact.
Exile target enchantment.
Deal 4 damage to target creature. If that creature would die this turn, exile it instead.
Gain 4 life.
Orzhov Command1WB Instant
Choose two-
Destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less.
Each opponent loses 2 life, you gain that amount of life.
Return target creature or enchantment with converted mana cost 1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Exile up to 6 cards of your choice from any combination of graveyards.
Izzet Command1UR Instant
Choose two-
Counter target spell with converted mana cost 2 or less.
Deal 2 damage to any target.
Exile target artifact.
Return target creature to it's owners hand. If you are it's owner, add one mana of any color to your mana pool, this mana may only be spent on creature spells. Until end of turn, you may cast creature spells as though they had flash.
Golgari Command1BG Instant
Choose two-
Destroy target non-land permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less.
Return target permanent from your graveyard to your hand.
Gain life equal to the total number of cards in all graveyards.
Target creature gets +1/+1, haste, trample, deathtouch, and reach until end of turn. Untap it.
Ah my bad. Yeah no bans until after the new London Mulligan Rule and Horizons come out so not until May or June I guess. I am looking more at Horizon to boost Control and Midrange in the face of aggro and grave recursion abuse more then the Mulligan though. I say combo but my impression is WOTC likes combo shackled.
?
I was under the impression that graveyard recursion was a type of combo, at least in most cases, with exceptions being things where the recursion is built into the card and doesn't require other cards to trigger it, like things with undying, unearth, or persist, but that things like Zombify, Arclite Phoenix and Prized Amalgam were essentially combo cards.
If someone has the power of luck on their side and isn't able to make white mana, maybe Leyline of the Void as another possible option? It is, at least, another thing besides Surgical that can fight turn 1 phoenixes? Only really works when it's in the opening hand though for the key times against most Modern graveyard decks though. Seems like it would be risky to rely on trying to mulligan to it, especially against Phoenix which has other plans like Thing in the Ice.
I like the basic idea, but perhaps something more like this:
Mad Mining RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. It's controller creates two tapped colorless Treasure artifact tokens with “t, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.”
That way you can potentially use it on yourself, made the mana cost a bit harder to help compensate for the self-targeting option and the tokens coming in tapped (so you can't use it right away to make up the cost of casting the spell while also destroying a tapped land from that turn. Your opponent would usually untap with them at the start of their next untap step since it's a sorcery.
Edit: Adding a new card idea pair:
Secrecy U
Instant
You may reveal this card from your opening hand, if you do, you have hexproof from the start of the game until you play your first land.
Choose one -
* Counter target spell that targets you.
* Scry 3.
Privacy W
Instant
You may reveal this card from your opening hand, if you do, you have hexproof from the start of the game until you play your first land.
Choose one -
* Counter target spell that targets you.
* Gain 4 life.
Sorcery
Destroy target enchantment.
Break Artifact 1
Instant
Destroy target artifact.
Kill Creature
Sorcery
Destroy target creature.
Counter Spellcasting 1
Instant
Counter target spell.
Mystic Reverberation 3
Instant
Destroy all artifacts and enchantments.
Doom Blast 1
Sorcery
Destroy all creatures.
Landbreaking
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
Powerful Surge
Instant
Split second
Exile target spell or permanent or card from graveyard.
That is true for the vast majority of decks, but there are potential decks out there that play cards like, say Temple Bell. Of course, those kind of decks tend to only actually work against certain kinds of opposing decks, so it's a rather extreme meta call, and probably a bad decision anyway. I guess I should have thought harder and tried to figure out a different sort of land idea to use as an example.
Reverse-scry Realm
Legendary Land
t: Add
t: Add one mana of any color, if you do, each opponent may scry 3.
I really hope they do some interesting things with sorcery and enchantment card types in particular, a lot of those are harder to get modern viable ones through standard, due to lack of proper hate in mono-colored decks for enchantments, and for sorcery spells, just power level for the mana cost differences in how it works compared to instant speed spells in modern compared to standard. Planeswalkers, creatures, lands, and instants all seem to make it through to modern with current standard design principles much easier, although I could be wrong.
I'm also wondering about how much multi-color will be in the set. I actually hope they lean on mono-colored and are relatively light on the multi-colored stuff, even if I do want some nice multi-colored stuff, like, say, enemy 'command' spells (Kolaghan's Command being an ally color example).
I also hope they do some fun stuff with creature types on the creatures that aren't specifically designed to slot into specific tribal decks, playing around with more rarely seen creature types and getting good art for them and doing interesting art and flavor for it that might be more rarely seen in standard or upcoming Standard sets that are more flavor restrictive (due to specific worlds) or more generic fantasy (for semi-beginner products like core sets).
I don't think we need quite Swords or Daze or Planar Void. Counterspell is certainly in line with what we need, but I think we could get a 2 drop variation on swords (perhaps giving life based on CMC rather than power if they want to mix things up), something like void would also be fine at 2 cmc, just black's version of Rest in Peace that doesn't rely on leyline opening hands, and I think there are a variety of ways more useful than daze they could deal with the sort of early plays and emergencies that is made for. Heck, counterspell itself isn't neccesarily needed, something that counters cmc 3 or 4 or less would probably do the job as well (I don't think prohibit would be sufficient though). I really hope they do things properly for Horizons and get things like that though.
I don't think KCI is the best unban choice, seems a little too eggsy, but I suspect Stoneforge and Twin would be fine if the answers in the format were set up right in Horizons, and some more turn 4 combos besides twin would be nice as well. I'm not sure terminus needs to be banned so much as that there should be options good enough that control decks don't rely on luck, or things get banned until proper 4 cmc sweepers or some of the partial 3 cmc ones become sufficient.
As implied by others, combo should be the fastest type of deck in the format, if allowed to goldfish, but slightly unreliable in that speed, with the target win turn if slightly disrupted being turn 4, with pre-turn-4 wins being extremely unlikely and generally only possible if allowed to goldfish, but still unlikely even then, aggro should be slightly slower but more reliable, winning no earlier than turn 5, with turn 4 wins possible with average draws if allowed to goldfish, and pre-turn-4 wins basically impossible even with goldfishing, or at least far less likely than combo. Control decks should never be winning before turn 6, although most of the time if they are going to win is likely determined around turn 5 outside of control vs. control mirror matches and similar such situations, based on how much they've disrupted the opponent's gameplan and built up advantages. These turn points are only valid if Modern remains a 'turn 4 format' rather than wizards deciding to allow it to be a turn 3 or turn 2 format or something.
Still it should go something like this, combo is fastest, and defeats aggro more often than it loses to aggro, because aggro isn't quite as fast and doesn't have as much disruption to stop the combo from going off. Combo loses more often to control because it is weak to disruption, despite it's speed (control currently has trouble with this side of things due to insufficiently broad answers and relatively weird combo state in the meta). Control loses to aggro because aggro is more reliable and less vulnerable to disruption thanks to more redundant cards that basically do the same thing and don't rely on specific combinations, but still faster than control can handle even when disrupted.
Currently however, a lot of the wins are pre-turn-4, and a lot of the decks are some weird hybrid of combo, tempo, and midrange that are oddly redundant and reliable for any of those archetypes, and win in ways that more closely resemble aggro-strategies, but get their power from things closer resembling combo strategies, but too reliable and fast for them to be fair as combo strategies in the current format based on the 'turn 4' rule ideal.
Buffing answers could help control gain an edge, if the answers are properly set up and deal properly with the combo elements of the existing decks, and make real aggro needed to take down those control and have the space to invade the format without being overwhelmed by faster combo.
I'm not really sure about all this though, since I'm still a little fuzzy headed due to being sick.
Nevermind then, I've just not been thinking clearly I guess since I have a cold.
If it was really that graveyard focused, I feel like we'd see cards like Tome Scour or Thought Scour targeting yourself would see some play in the same sort of decks. I mean, I've seen that with Thought Scour, but not as often as I'd think if the graveyard aspect was the only thing making FL see the play it does. I think it's the combination of card selection, graveyard feeding and flashback that puts it over the edge. It's not good enough at card selection to really see play outside of graveyard stuff, partly because it's net negative cards during the initial cast from the hand, but with graveyard play, it's almost like card selection for the graveyard too, since you are picking not just from your top cards but also from your hand.
Eh, I disagree. It's card selection and graveyard feeding was always broken, at least for the mana costs involved, it's just that the card wasn't that much more powerful than it's costs.
Card selection being too powerful for it's costs is hard to detect, outside of that ones that are fair for their costs don't see much play, because the format is too fast for them and the decks they get put in have often been lacking in density of what the card selection tools can dig up, as well as the issue of cheating in paper magic. It's rare for decks that aren't highly reliant on specific cards or are doing something weird like a combo to play much card selection. Card selection has gotten better over time in the format as the number of viable powerful options in a lot of archetypes has grown, making it easier to dig to something that can do well against more consistent decks that had better card pools from earlier in the format.
Graveyard feeding being too powerful is hard to detect because basically only the stuff that is too powerful is played since the start of the format, because graveyard stuff itself wasn't that powerful. Having too strong of enablers means that when decent graveyard stuff is printed in sufficient mass, they start breaking things, even if they served as life-support beforehand, but it increases in power rapidly as more stuff gets printed that is format viable without the stronger than it should be feeding.
Faithless looting isn't too much over the edge, but I think it's enough so that I wouldn't blame the things it enables too easily. This doesn't means such things are automatically fair and it's the culprit, but I'd hesitate to automatically blame the things it enables, especially when most of their other enablers aren't nearly as early game or reliable, and don't see as much play in as many different decks.
Yeah, I also doubt any actual staples will see something strictly better, but some things that decks might want to be able to do but currently don't because the things that do so have to high cmc or are to narrow but would be playable if they did something extra or had modal options was more what I was thinking of when it comes to strictly better. Of course, Mana Leak and Remand aren't actually strictly worse than counterspell, due to the more color restricted casting cost on counterspell even if modern's color fixing is good enough that such usually shouldn't matter, and in remand's case the card draw and some potential clever trickery or weirdness that remand's bouncing might allow. An example I can think of might be something like Abrade, except it exiles the artifacts in question or the creatures if they die that turn.
After all, some decks may find cards in it suit them slightly better than certain cards currently in the deck (even if they aren't strictly better, and other decks with that card would still use it), which could cause those cards to turn up for sale, some decks could be made more viable by new inclusions which could result in people buying other cards from those decks, some cards could see strictly better versions turn up and plummet in price, some decks could see enough new hate against them or decks that prey on them rising in the metagame or being created based on the new cards and become less popular with their pieces dropping in demand, and so on.
It's probably good that the shock-lands are currently in print, given the potential for Modern Horizons to increase the popularity of the format. Although of course, that could only make the pressure on the fetch-lands worse, so if that does happen, I hope they'd quickly reprint those in large numbers somehow outside of Standard.
Instant
Exile target spell with converted mana cost 4 or less. It's controller untaps a number of lands equal to it's converted mana cost. At the start of it's owner's next upkeep, return the exiled spell to it's owner's hand.
Exile Mana Reversal.
Spell Smother UU
Instant
Counter target spell with converted mana cost 3 or less.
Also reprints of various things, including some color alternates of existing in modern things, like:
Force Spike (Mana Tithe)
Wall of Blossoms (Wall of Omens)
I'd also kind of like there to be a mono blue 2 drop draw creature, since blue is supposed to be better at draw than white or green, maybe something like:
Levitating Bookshelf 1U
Creature - Wall
Defender
Flying
When Levitating Bookshelf enters the battlefield, draw a card.
0/4
Adding flying to the Omens/Blossoms setup so it can block other flyers and get evasion in decks that can turn walls into attackers, and since flying is in blue's color pie.
I'd kinda like for something _like_ containment priest. But perhaps something that isn't human type, so maybe something like:
Containment Eye 1W
Creature - Hommunculus
Flash
If a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead.
1/3
The flash and ability needs to stay the same, and probably the mana cost too, but the p/t and creature type can be different, to avoid powering up some of the modern tribal decks like spirits and humans. Using a less tribal heavy creature type like hommunculus, avatar, or kor seems like a good idea.
Here are some more cards I'd like to see:
Innocent Blood
Undermine
Diabolic Edict
Tribute to the Wild
Impulse
From the Ashes
Angel of Finality
Stranglehold
Crawlspace
Bind
Skyshroud Elite
Wild Growth
Flametongue Kavu
Skyshroud War Beast
Lobotomy
Not all of them are needed of course, and many might not have much chance of real modern playability, but a number could easily fill in holes in modern's card pool in terms of what various colors or things to do involve, and some could be seriously helpful for some decks or sideboards.
I'd also kinda like to see a variant on Swords to Plowshares, but I think it's a bit too strong, however, I think white's 2 drop removal space is a bit lacking in Modern, so I could easily see something in that mana space working, something along the lines of:
Sabers to Latershares 1W
Instant
Exile target creature. It's controller gains life equal to it's converted mana cost.
I thought using CMC rather than power might be a nice variant to set it distinct for the lifegain, as well as making it stronger against most tokens type stuff, but I think some decks would be willing to pay life and 1 extra mana rather than give an opponent a basic land due to Path to Exile, while others might want them both for 5-8 pieces of modern viable white removal.
Some other things I'd like to see in the format include:
1 drop blue and 1 drop white prowess creatures of similar level of playability to Monastery Swiftspear, likely involving flying for blue, but I'm not sure what would work best for white.
A just blue 1 drop hexproof creature, along the lines of Slippery Bogle, and Gladecover Scout, for potential for replacing gladecover in a non-green bogles deck or creating a bant boggles deck with more critters or something. Not sure if it should be a merfolk or some other type that is more rarely seen, like crab or turtle or octopus or something.
Some kind of thing inspired by mother of runes, but perhaps using something more like a combination of hexproof and indestructible, rather than protection, maybe with an extra or two to make it closer in power level to protection, but as a mono-white 2 drop, rather than a 1 drop, to make it a bit more reasonable and let it have a better base body than MoR.
Mono-White's version of Reclamation Sage, perhaps with a harder mana cost like 1WW in exchange for some extras, like being a 1/4 vigilance or something.
Mono-Red's variation on this sort of thing, but only against artifacts, it should probably still be a 3 drop, since artifacts are often also creatures, and getting rid of artifacts is often treated as slightly more intensive mana cost wise than enchantments, so it probably shouldn't just be a variant on War Priest of Thune except red and artifacts rather than white and enchantments, but being higher cmc than that and not as flexible as reclaimation sage or the above noted white thing means perhaps it should get something extra, like:
Smeltsinger 1RR
Creature - Dwarf Rogue
Haste, Menace
When Smeltsinger enters the battlefield, you may destroy target artifact.
2/3
Might also be nice to have a mono-blue thing that can draw two cards at instant speed for 3 cmc, rather than being trapped in esper for esper charm for that kind of effect. Maybe a 1UU mana cost with no alternate modes like esper charm has would be fair?
I'd also like to see some lower cmc blue non-artifact cards that generate artifact tokens for a possible sort of Shape Anew deck as a cute variant to polymorph decks.
I'd like to see something for 0 turn countering, something along the lines of:
Prepardness U
Instant
Counter target spell with converted mana cost 1 or less.
You may cast Prepardness without paying it's mana cost if you don't control any lands. If you do, lands you play enter the battlefield tapped and can't be untapped until your next end step.
This would be more fair than something like Mental Misstep, since it still costs you your first turn's mana, and can only be cast for 'free' before you've played any lands (unless something weird is going on like land destruction/sacrifice), but can still let some decks do potentially crutial counters of opponent on the play turn 1 counterspelling, such as if you care a lot about keeping your hand secret and your opponent is playing Thoughtseize, or against a turn 1 Faithless Looting in game 2 vs. Phoenix when you feel unlucky and they didn't mulligan.
I'd also like to see cards to complete searching for 3 cmc of various card types, finishing the 'cycle' of Fabricate, Idyllic Tutor, and Call the Gatewatch. I think 2G for creature searching, since creatures and summoning themes tend to be a green thing more than other colors in this context typically, 2B for sorcery searching, since the slow spellcasting of elaborate spells in powerful rituals (not MtG rituals) seems a very black thing, ironically, I could see this one also being an instant, since searching for cards is already in black's color pie, or mabye being dropped to 1B mana cost, and finally instant spells 'rapid cast battle magic' would be 2R. Perhaps names like Summoner's Tutor, Spellcaster's Tutor, and Battlemage's Tutor?
Some more non-basic hate and grave hate in various colors, especially ones that don't have it outside of artifacts as much for modern viable levels, including forms that fit into various types of modern decks, doing their things alongside incidental hate, similar to how Destructive Revelry plays into burn or aggro strategies while still being effective hate against artifacts and/or enchantments. This stuff would be low cmc stuff, and more focused along the ways their colors do it, unlike various artifacts used for similar purposes, since a lot of the graveyard combo is fast, and tron can potentially come online in turn 3 for the opponent, which is when you are at 2 cmc if you were on the draw. It doesn't have to destroy the lands for nonbasic land hate, it could do things like Stensia Innkeeper or a single target rather than board version of From the Ashes or a Spreading Seas type effect or various other sorts of options. Grave-hate similarly doesn't have to exile, it could put things shuffled or onto the bottom of libraries, or make graveyards inaccessible in various ways. The main idea here is to fill out more options for different decks and archetypes and color combinations and make the hate cards fit more smoothly into their strategies than some of the more generic options we currently have like Relic of Progenitus. Some of the weaker effects like Stensia Innkeeper tapdown type nonbasic hate could be set up to have stronger side-benefits to the normal strategy or work against more opposing strategies through multiple options or something.
I'd kinda like a Vindicate effect at a modern playable CMC. I think it could work more fairly in modern with a harder mana cost, like WBR which would avoid it slotting straight into some kind of BGx midrange decks as easily so long as it doesn't have both b and g in it's mana cost. Another possibility is going up to 4 cmc and getting a worthwhile extra, like drawing a card or gaining a bit of life and causing the opponent to lose a bit of life. I don't think Vindicate itself is necessarily the best choice for Modern, it's a bit too flexible for something that can also destroy lands, and 2 colors including white and black are a bit too easy to fit into various decks for a 3 cmc version of the effect.
I'd also like to see more stuff that goes into white weenie in white, more stuff that goes into generic tempo decks in blue, more quirky sideboard stuff in red like we've started seeing with stuff like Harsh Mentor and Blood Sun, more interesting potent 'early' (lower cmc than usual) or somewhat off-color stuff for a life payment or creature sacrifice in black, and more hasty stompy creatures or hatebears in green.
I's also like to see more ways to interact with the stack outside of blue, like green and white giving certain things temporary hexproof, red perhaps creating a sort of punisher type effect where they can cancel what they are doing or take damage, green countering abilities, perhaps repeatably (in contrast to blue countering spells), and maybe black and red being able to turn spells on the stack into their advantage, perhaps by dealing damage or creating tokens under their own control related to the opponent's spell's cmc. Maybe black could 'counter' a non-zombie, non-spirit opponent's creature spell and cause the opponent to just get a spirit token with the abilities of the countered creature + flying while the black player gets a zombie token with the p/t of the countered creature? Maybe black and red could be allowed to counter enchantments, even if they can't remove existing ones, and black counter artifacts?
I'd also like to see more things like Aura Barbs, but lower cmc, for red against enchantments and black against enchantments and/or artifacts. Things that penalize an opponent for having permanents that the colors involved can't get rid of in a relatively strong way that could make decent sideboard cards in mono-colored decks.
Edit:
I'd also like to see something in blue for creature removal-ish effect for Modern, something like this, somewhat inspired by
Reality Shift:
False Reflector 1U
Instant
Exile target creature. It's controller creates a 2/4 blue illusion creature token with flying and defender.
It would give the opponent a nice defensive creature, letting the blue deck stall well, but thoroughly getting rid of the removed creature, and do it at the right timing in the game for Modern, and be particularly effective for control decks that eventually play creatures with stats at least 4/3 or that don't rely on creature based finishers. It gives such a relatively generous token because the removal is out of blue's color pie, but the polymorph-ish effect is within it, as is illusions and flying, and can even be used on your own creatures to make a more defensive version in a pinch if the situation calls for it like hexproof opposing creatures. But since the token has defender, it avoids hurting as many decks trying to play it as some similar cards like Reality Shift or Pongify. Since it exiles the original, it's also more of a flavor hit for me for these kind of effects than things like Pongify, since it's weird when something that is transformed can also be reanimated from the graveyard or something weird like that.
Hax! I think you'd have to get rid of the flash and make it target player, maybe player or planeswalker, for this to be reasonable.
Edit: adding some more card ideas of my own-
Simic Command 1UG
Instant
Choose two -
Boros Command 1WR
Instant
Choose two -
Orzhov Command 1WB
Instant
Choose two-
Izzet Command 1UR
Instant
Choose two-
Golgari Command 1BG
Instant
Choose two-
?
I was under the impression that graveyard recursion was a type of combo, at least in most cases, with exceptions being things where the recursion is built into the card and doesn't require other cards to trigger it, like things with undying, unearth, or persist, but that things like Zombify, Arclite Phoenix and Prized Amalgam were essentially combo cards.