I think the straw that broke the camel's back when it comes to looting is the fact that it was played in Dredge. Everything else was just collateral damage and more likely then not chaff that folded to Dredge anyway.
If there is a mechanic/strategy that WotC would want to nuke out of orbit or just plain erase it from the game entirely it's Dredge. Now Looting is up there with GGT, Bridge from Below and Dread Return as one of the newest members of the Dredge Hall of Shame. That fact alone speaks to the power of the card more then anything else. That being said I don't think the deck is dead and gone, even with two consecutive bans aimed at it. It will just resort to other, slightly less popular not less powerful (Hedron Crab and Glimpse the Unthinkable come to mind), enables to keep on dredging. Until they ban Imp and Thug at the beginning of the End Times.
They could very possibly reprint Careful Study as a compensation of sorts to other "fair" looting decks but I don't expect them to be quick about it if the blue enablers manage to pick up the pace and keep Dredge in the format at whatever tier.
I would at the very least try this in a Drake/Phoenix deck. Don't know how many of these I want maindeck but that will probably depend on how fast the deck can make it so the adapt activation costs 3 or less.
Afterlife 2 might seem odd at first from a flavor perspective, but not by that much. As for the card itself it's a good package but there is a lot of exile effects running around (Lava Coil if not anything else). Not saying that makes it bad, but you do need to have a plan if you're jamming this as you can't simply rely on afterlife value alone.
Personally I don't think she will manage to destroy the Obzedat. Thousands of years of experience in underhanded dealings, politics and such isn't exactly trivial. Besides, there is quite a lot of them and I doubt they would all be stupid enough to just stand in a room while she snuffs them out one by one. If there is one thing you become good at when you are dead as long as they have been it is patience. She might beat them for now, but the Ghost Council will certainly outlast her.
My best guess would be that she manages to destroy maybe half of them and that forces them into hiding. Teysa's involvement in this still remains unclear but I think she will end up being on the side of the Obzedat (maybe even as a new member) on the grounds of an outsider being a greater foil for her plans for the guild.
I'm thoroughly unsatisfied with this announcement.
The small things first: the new naming convention just seems terrible, I'm beginning to think by design. That way it's much easier to gaslight us and ram through these changes which might have caused street riots if they were presented in layman's terms.
The meat of the announcement seems to boil down to promises of more programs for a game that is still in open beta stage of development while simultaneously gutting the entire tabletop organized play system as we know it. They did manage to give us a redeemable code for the 5th copies of cards we already have on MTGA so that makes it alright in their book I'm guessing?
- Is The Mirari Conjecture worth it? If it is, is it safe to assume that Blink of an Eye is part of that package deal?
- People have been playing Entrancing Melody in the sideboard for a while now but I honestly don't see it. Even with discounts it is a really expensive control magic effect. I get that people thought it was a solution to Adanto Vanguard but Murmuring Mystic deals with that issue much more elegantly. Does it have applications in any other matchup? While we are discussing white decks do you feel that Murmuring Mystic and Fiery Cannonade are mutually excluding plans for those matchups? Running a sweeper against along with a token chump plan seems counter intuitive.
- Would you play a Dive Down over a third Negate or a Disdainful Stroke? It is a card I'm personally enamored with and I can't imagine playing this deck without access to at least one copy of the card in the 75, possibly even two. Negate seems like the stronger counter on the basis that it helps you in counter-wars but mostly because the two creatures you want to spend a counter on can't be countered so Disdainful Stroke hitting creatures doesn't come up as much.
I always thought that the correct decision was to ban both, just to be sure. Still, Eldrazi Temple is still there but I don't feel as oppressed by it (and E-Tron in particular) now that BBE is legal again.
That aside the list is pretty much perfect at this point, gone are the days of banning 3/3 vanilla creatures, and the reasons why most cards are on the list are more or less perfectly legitimate. The Jitte question was mostly curiosity on my part to see the community's reactions to the issue and the card itself (though I'm not entirely convinced it would be a detrimental unban). It's to soon to talk more unbans anyways since the format is still in flux from the last one. In a few months time (by the end of summer) we will probably have a better understanding of the impact of the last unban and more clarity on whether any additional changes (including bans) need to be made.
As I said, I understand that Jitte is powerful (I've played the card myself a while back and I kept losing to it with Goblins in Legacy when I couldn't remove it), but I still think that it's ban is unwarranted at this juncture. For one thing Modern isn't Legacy. The ban was put in place at the format's inception to keep it from becoming a "Legacy lite"; to help it form it's own identity instead of just playing Legacy strategies with Modern legal cards. That was seven years ago. I think we can all agree that the format has evolved significantly since then. At the very least it would be interesting to see how the current crop of Modern decks would try and incorporate it into their lists.
I do agree, however, that if we do get Jitte back Stoneforge Mystic should be out for good (though in the interest of full disclosure it's not like there was that big of a chance for it to be unbanned to begin with).
Is the card polarizing creature matchups? Doubtlessly, it would be foolish not to admit that. It's just that I don't think cramming Jitte into current decks is as easy as people make it out to be. To my mind even if they somehow could it would only represent one among many angles of attack in those matchups, not the only show in town and that's why I think it might be a safe unban, relatively speaking.
Is it a risky move to have it legal in Modern? Probably, but when compared to the simultaneous unban of BOTH Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is it really?
Fair points all. I agree that comparing an active equipment to combo kills is a fallacy but the point I was trying to make is that it isn't really as bad as we remember it to be. Same thing goes for JTMS.
The play pattern in aggro vs. aggro matchups involving jitte would probably be more interesting then we give it credit for, especially now with all the new toys we have. At worst it is powerful but not in a disparaging way.
What decks actively want to have access to Umezawa's Jitte right now? I can't imagine it is a large number of them, most of them are fringe tiers so if this card bumps them up to tier 2 or 1.5 then more power to it.
This question might be a touch insane, but is it time to start considering removing Umezawa's Jitte from the Modern banned list?
Basically, I'm questioning whether the card is as overpowered as the shadows of the past made it out to be (if anything Jace is the most recent proof that perception doesn't always equate fact). Our experiences with Umezawa's Jitte are somewhat colored by it's time during the Kamigawa block season (where it was b.u.s.t.e.d.) and old Extended, where it was good but not good enough to warrant a ban. Modern is has a much larger card pool then either of those formats so it makes sense to me that it should be able to handle it.
The other consideration is the two legend rule changes that have happened since it got banned from Modern in the first place. While the Kamigawa legend rule made it a really obnoxious card, I think the subsequent rules changes made the card that much less so. You can actually have a Jitte of your own to try and keep up with the opponents (though I admit that fighting over getting a hit in with said equipment is much more difficult that it seems but at least that is a legitimate subgame).
Finally, I would once again wish to refer to the enormous card pool Modern has right now. Besides having some of the best spot removal spells in the history of the game, a plethora of playable maindeck artifact removal, the format also has a bunch of sick decks that can kill you outright before you even get the first counters on Jitte. An active Jitte on turn 4 isn't as bad as a Grapeshot kill on turn 4, Karn on turn 3 or Thought-Knot Seer on turn 2.
Those are my thoughts on this issue. Am I missing something?
Depending on how this Jace experiment pans out, we might see other potential candidates for an unbaning besides Stoneforge (though to be fair it's chances are greatly diminished now).
EDIT: Blightning use to be a beating vs. Jace in the old Standard. Curious to see if it rears it's scorched head again...
It will be quite some time before we cross that bridge. It will take the format months, maybe even a full year or so, before it digests this. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I have to say I was biased against the finals match being entertaining but it wasn't as horrible as I feared it would be. Then again if it was Boggles vs. Grishoalbrand it would have been a lot worse, even though it was amusing to watch how that deck pulled wins out of thin air. Boggles vs. Burn is a much more interactive finals match then a matchup against a turn 2 combo deck can hope to be.
As for the announcement it seems most likely to me that they will take the centrist approach and unban BBE. Jund has been down in the dumps for the past year or so and there is no real rational explanation why a turn 4 BBE is too good for the format in which a turn 3 TKS is not as uncommon as you might think. Jace would take me completely by surprise if they actually went for it. Still, they did unban Golgari Grave-Troll at one point which clearly shows they are not adverse to risks and are not as biased as it might seem at first glance.
I think it's reasonable to expect unbans, regardless of what they opt for, on the basis that it's better to release new cards into a non-homogenized meta then the other way around. Unbans shouldn't be a bandage that fixes a format but rather something that enriches an already thriving one.
If there is a mechanic/strategy that WotC would want to nuke out of orbit or just plain erase it from the game entirely it's Dredge. Now Looting is up there with GGT, Bridge from Below and Dread Return as one of the newest members of the Dredge Hall of Shame. That fact alone speaks to the power of the card more then anything else. That being said I don't think the deck is dead and gone, even with two consecutive bans aimed at it. It will just resort to other, slightly less popular not less powerful (Hedron Crab and Glimpse the Unthinkable come to mind), enables to keep on dredging. Until they ban Imp and Thug at the beginning of the End Times.
They could very possibly reprint Careful Study as a compensation of sorts to other "fair" looting decks but I don't expect them to be quick about it if the blue enablers manage to pick up the pace and keep Dredge in the format at whatever tier.
My best guess would be that she manages to destroy maybe half of them and that forces them into hiding. Teysa's involvement in this still remains unclear but I think she will end up being on the side of the Obzedat (maybe even as a new member) on the grounds of an outsider being a greater foil for her plans for the guild.
The small things first: the new naming convention just seems terrible, I'm beginning to think by design. That way it's much easier to gaslight us and ram through these changes which might have caused street riots if they were presented in layman's terms.
The meat of the announcement seems to boil down to promises of more programs for a game that is still in open beta stage of development while simultaneously gutting the entire tabletop organized play system as we know it. They did manage to give us a redeemable code for the 5th copies of cards we already have on MTGA so that makes it alright in their book I'm guessing?
- Is The Mirari Conjecture worth it? If it is, is it safe to assume that Blink of an Eye is part of that package deal?
- People have been playing Entrancing Melody in the sideboard for a while now but I honestly don't see it. Even with discounts it is a really expensive control magic effect. I get that people thought it was a solution to Adanto Vanguard but Murmuring Mystic deals with that issue much more elegantly. Does it have applications in any other matchup? While we are discussing white decks do you feel that Murmuring Mystic and Fiery Cannonade are mutually excluding plans for those matchups? Running a sweeper against along with a token chump plan seems counter intuitive.
- Would you play a Dive Down over a third Negate or a Disdainful Stroke? It is a card I'm personally enamored with and I can't imagine playing this deck without access to at least one copy of the card in the 75, possibly even two. Negate seems like the stronger counter on the basis that it helps you in counter-wars but mostly because the two creatures you want to spend a counter on can't be countered so Disdainful Stroke hitting creatures doesn't come up as much.
That aside the list is pretty much perfect at this point, gone are the days of banning 3/3 vanilla creatures, and the reasons why most cards are on the list are more or less perfectly legitimate. The Jitte question was mostly curiosity on my part to see the community's reactions to the issue and the card itself (though I'm not entirely convinced it would be a detrimental unban). It's to soon to talk more unbans anyways since the format is still in flux from the last one. In a few months time (by the end of summer) we will probably have a better understanding of the impact of the last unban and more clarity on whether any additional changes (including bans) need to be made.
I do agree, however, that if we do get Jitte back Stoneforge Mystic should be out for good (though in the interest of full disclosure it's not like there was that big of a chance for it to be unbanned to begin with).
Is the card polarizing creature matchups? Doubtlessly, it would be foolish not to admit that. It's just that I don't think cramming Jitte into current decks is as easy as people make it out to be. To my mind even if they somehow could it would only represent one among many angles of attack in those matchups, not the only show in town and that's why I think it might be a safe unban, relatively speaking.
Is it a risky move to have it legal in Modern? Probably, but when compared to the simultaneous unban of BOTH Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is it really?
The play pattern in aggro vs. aggro matchups involving jitte would probably be more interesting then we give it credit for, especially now with all the new toys we have. At worst it is powerful but not in a disparaging way.
What decks actively want to have access to Umezawa's Jitte right now? I can't imagine it is a large number of them, most of them are fringe tiers so if this card bumps them up to tier 2 or 1.5 then more power to it.
Basically, I'm questioning whether the card is as overpowered as the shadows of the past made it out to be (if anything Jace is the most recent proof that perception doesn't always equate fact). Our experiences with Umezawa's Jitte are somewhat colored by it's time during the Kamigawa block season (where it was b.u.s.t.e.d.) and old Extended, where it was good but not good enough to warrant a ban. Modern is has a much larger card pool then either of those formats so it makes sense to me that it should be able to handle it.
The other consideration is the two legend rule changes that have happened since it got banned from Modern in the first place. While the Kamigawa legend rule made it a really obnoxious card, I think the subsequent rules changes made the card that much less so. You can actually have a Jitte of your own to try and keep up with the opponents (though I admit that fighting over getting a hit in with said equipment is much more difficult that it seems but at least that is a legitimate subgame).
Finally, I would once again wish to refer to the enormous card pool Modern has right now. Besides having some of the best spot removal spells in the history of the game, a plethora of playable maindeck artifact removal, the format also has a bunch of sick decks that can kill you outright before you even get the first counters on Jitte. An active Jitte on turn 4 isn't as bad as a Grapeshot kill on turn 4, Karn on turn 3 or Thought-Knot Seer on turn 2.
Those are my thoughts on this issue. Am I missing something?
EDIT: Blightning use to be a beating vs. Jace in the old Standard. Curious to see if it rears it's scorched head again...
It will be quite some time before we cross that bridge. It will take the format months, maybe even a full year or so, before it digests this. Enjoy it while it lasts.
As for the announcement it seems most likely to me that they will take the centrist approach and unban BBE. Jund has been down in the dumps for the past year or so and there is no real rational explanation why a turn 4 BBE is too good for the format in which a turn 3 TKS is not as uncommon as you might think. Jace would take me completely by surprise if they actually went for it. Still, they did unban Golgari Grave-Troll at one point which clearly shows they are not adverse to risks and are not as biased as it might seem at first glance.
I think it's reasonable to expect unbans, regardless of what they opt for, on the basis that it's better to release new cards into a non-homogenized meta then the other way around. Unbans shouldn't be a bandage that fixes a format but rather something that enriches an already thriving one.