Yes but why does Green deserve the best cantrip? I thought the vaunted color pie was suppose to matter and Green Cantrip being mostly used to find Colorless Eldrazi and Artifacts is laughable.
Even accepting that Ancient Stirrings is the best cantrip, which is debatable considering its restrictions, let's remember that Green is supposed to get the best creatures, but the list of most-played creatures has more Blue creatures than Green ones (indeed, the #1 most played creature, in terms of how many decks play it, is Snapcaster Mage). A lot of stuff ends up different than the way it's "supposed" to be, particularly in the nonrotating formats.
I mean, Black is supposed to get the best removal spells (with White in second place), but White gets the best removal spell in all of Modern, Path to Exile.
KtK they didn't add the card to the set and then unban it. They had it planned for reprint and realized after Iconic that there was no way the other set was going to go over well, so they took the risk of unbanning JTMS to try and boost sales.
Do you have hard proof for this, or is this just speculation on your part?
While it's possible they "only" unbanned Jace to sell packs, it's also possible that they had him on their minds as a possible unban for a while, and decided to put him in the set so that whenever they did decide to unban him, he wouldn't hit $200 on the spot. Or it's possible it's a combination of the two, i.e. that they put Jace in the set with a possible unban in mind for him, and then realized the set wasn't worth much and they decided to therefore time the unbanning in accordance with its release.
I don't think it's proper to assert that a particular explanation is correct unless you have real evidence. And maybe you do, but you didn't present it in this post, you just asserted this without backup.
Although:
I don't really know what else they could have done on such short notice to try and save it because it isn't like they could reconfigure the card selection last minute.
Well, they could've dropped the price of booster packs a little.
@arkmer: The purpose of those games is pretty clear. Punishing manabases. Now you may not like that blood moon hits all your utility lands or whatnot but Blood Moon and similar effects are one piece of the puzzle to stop modern and eternal formats from being 4-5 color goodstuff decks and to create a cost for building multiple colors to remove weaknesses.
For example, the grixis dealing with enchantments discussion earlier in this thread shows us that without white or green it's very difficult for those decks to reliably deal with enchantments. Without effects and cards like BM you'd see more and more splashes of lands for utility cards and the decks may not be 5 color but would certainly start melding more into a 3 mana deck with a splash way more easily.
One of the other complaints even earlier in this thread was about humans and it's ability to cast whatever human they want, whenever. Now imagine the 4 color monstrosities you'd probably get from control/midrange players who are not punished at all by BM. That's why it exists. It's a mechanism to stop that reality from happening and I am OK with paying the cost of non games for that.
To me, one of the most powerful arguments in favor of Blood Moon is Khans-Battle Standard, where someone had the bright idea to put fetchlands and fetchable dual lands into the same Standard but without any decent hate for the interaction, resulting in a format so bad I was finally driven away from Standard. Had Blood Moon been legal, it would've given more incentive to not play ultra-greedy manabases and the decks wouldn't have almost all felt the same, resulting in a much better format (it also would've taken the wind out of Siege Rhino's sails, another plus). It's an indication of what happens when you have color fixing as fantastic as the fetchlands+shocklands but without cards to properly hate on it.
If they can continue to provide excellent reprint value in a $4.00 supplemental set, I'd take that all day any day compared to bloated, top-heavy $10 Master's sets.
It really is kind of obnoxious. If they did $4 Masters packs and put some good stuff in them, I might just buy some packs, but as it stands I agree that they're pretty toxic for players. Isn't there some market force available here to show Wizards that going to $10 was a stupid move?
Initially, the rise to $10 made a lot of sense. The first Modern Masters had an MSRP of $7 and it was simply not possible to find them for that price (anyplace that tried would sell out in minutes), which led to complaints from players and complaints from stores about players complaining. So for the next set, they increased it to $10. This was reasonable.
The problem is that since then, the value of the sets have gone down, with them becoming increasingly "top heavy" and with a lower EV. That is not a problem in and of itself, but they haven't dropped the MSRP down to correspond with that. I think they should go back to $7 or at least $8. Maybe they just don't want to actually drop prices and just figure inflation will eventually fix the problem for them.
Re: Humans
I've seen at least two comparisons to Twin. This needs to stop. Humans has two GP T8s in the last 7 months. Twin had 10+ by the end of 2015. Twin made up 19% of GP T8 decks that year. Not even Gx Tron is currently at that level, and Humans isn't even close. I know it's easy to look at SCG Opens and Day 1 Team PT #s and say the deck's share is too high, but these numbers do not matter. If the GP stats shift and Humans picks up a lot more T8s, that's something to discuss. But right now, it's speculation and hyperbole.
If they were going to make a ban decision on a card right now that would even hit humans, it would probably be based on other factors. The problem is that the only example I can think of off the top of my hand where they did ban a card not because of a particular deck, but because of being too prolific, was Smuggler's Copter in standard.
Not counting the earliest years of the game, there's Mental Misstep (Legacy), Skullclamp (Standard), and Rishadan Port (Mercadian Masques Block Constructed).
There are some other cards that may qualify, depending on what exactly you mean by "not because of a particular deck, but because of being too prolific." For example, Jace in Standard. Obviously, the deck everyone had in mind was Caw-Blade, but that was really just the best Jace shell. Only half of the Top 8 decks at Grand Prix Dallas 2011 was Caw-Blade, but Jace still managed the perfect 32/32 penetration (something that I believe has only been accomplished at the GP/PT level by Brainstorm in Legacy and Courser of Kruphix in Theros Block Constructed). So does Jace's ban count as occurring because of Caw-Blade being too good, or because he was just everywhere irrespective of Caw-Blade? There's also Deathrite Shaman in Legacy, which was hugely prolific but whose 38% metashare wasn't that high compared to other cards banned for being everywhere, does that count.
Although I feel Smuggler's Copter, and possibly everything else in that batch, would have been spared had people not disliked that Standard format so much. I don't think it saw as much play as Mutavault did during RTR-Theros Standard, and I think Mutavault might have been more warping--Smuggler's Copter just was a good fit for a lot of decks, but Mutavault actively affected deck construction by making it harder to play more than 2 colors. The difference, as far as I can tell, is that attendance was stable during RTR-Theros but was declining when Smuggler's Copter was legal, though there were more factors in the decline than just Smuggler's Copter of course, or even the other cards they banned.
You ignored the entire argument and only focused on "Turn 4." The argument is that every combo deck in Modern right now that can consistently win early devotes its entire deck to doing so. Humans remains powerful and fast while also being disruptive because it devotes half its deck to the tribal support it needs to accomplish that goal. So here we have a bunch of fast decks that need 30+ cards to pull off these crazy-fast powerful strategies...
...and then we have Twin winning at the same speed with a whopping 7 cards devoted to the combo. Yeah, that's totally comparable. /s
Not a fair comparison. Twin may have been capable of winning at the same speed, but it didn't have the same level of consistency (unless you were in All-In Twin, which required a more pieces), and it was also far more vulnerable to disruption and thus the turn 4 kill was generally only doable against decks lacking interaction against Twin, like removal or discard or counterspells.
Also, your comparison of "30+" versus "7" is inaccurate also. First, Twin's usual suite was 4x Exarch+2x Pestermite+4x Splinter Twin which is 10, not 7. Now you might say that's still a lot less than 30+. But to get to that 30+ you have to include the various cards used to actually get the combo together and protect it, so you'd have to then start counting the Serum Visions and Remands and other cards that Twin ran to find or protect the combo.
No-Ban Modern exists and has been tested. The format is nothing but Eldrazi Winter with a few Affinity decks and Infect winning here and there on Turn 2.
Er, what are you basing this on? If it's the SCG Open, Infect and Affinity were basically absent in that. Eldrazi Winter was out in full force, but I think a lot of that had to do with (1) people not expecting the deck (I looked at various discussions beforehand about what people thought the best decks were, Eldrazi was not on people's radar in general) and (2) the ease of putting it together back on the old Modern decks. I think we'd need to see another such event before we could try to make strong conclusions about it... but even from the event in question, your conclusions aren't making sense.
My only problem with Stirrings is the double standard it presents. Don't try and tell me about its deck building constraints, because that's not a drawback in the decks that play it. It is an objective fact that Ancient Stirrings is more powerful in its decks than Ponder. If you question that statement, just ask yourself this: would the colorless decks prefer to splash green for Stirrings, or blue for Ponder if it was legal?
Not really a fair comparison. Ponder's strength comes from its synergy with fetchlands, which the decks you're alluding to don't run. But if they were, I think Ponder would be better than Ancient Stirrings (except perhaps in Gx Tron, but that comes from it already being in Green for Sylvan scrying regardless of Ancient Stirrings or Ponder, so it makes more sense to go with the cantrip in the color you're already in).
It's offensive that Stirrings is legal when Ponder isn't, and not to mention Preordain, which is way below both of those cards in power. Preordain should probably just be legal either way, but Stirrings and Ponder need to be together. Either they're both legal, or they're both banned. I personally would prefer if they just unbanned the blue cantrips, and we can deal with Grapeshot if Storm becomes a problem.
Even accepting the proposition that Ancient Stirrings is inherently better than Ponder in the decks that currently run it, that doesn't mean it's a dissonance for it to be legal while Ponder isn't. The thing is, in a whole lot of other decks, Ponder is way better.
I do generally agree that Preordain could probably be unbanned, but the strength of UWx Control does give me a little pause in that area. I think I'd rather see Splinter Twin return at this point.
Is the solution amongst us that Ancient Stirrings needs the ban? Or that we should be unbanning other cards?
Ancient Stirrings doesn't need a ban, so what we should be doing is unbanning cards. In fact, even if Ancient Stirrings (or anything else) did need a ban, we should be unbanning cards, because there are multiple cards on the list that don't need to be there, irrespective of whether things should be added to the banlist.
"We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format. In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern." - Wizards, January 18th, Banned and Restricted Announcement.
Where is humans at at this point in comparison?
Look, Wizards isn't giving us Twin back. I guarantee they will ban Aether Vial before anything else, and make changes to the banned list that reflect old Extended.
Is there any particular reason to believe they won't unban Splinter Twin? Have they stated anything to that effect?
If Krark-Clan Ironworks requires a ban, which I'm not convinced of (both UWx Control and Humans have put up better results, from what I can tell), then the proper targets would be Krark-Clan Ironworks or Scrap Trawler.
if we look at the top 4 decklists, it's interesting that legacy top 4 are all aggro decks, modern has 3 aggro decks in the top 4, the only exception being a combo. and if we look closely, 2 DNT for legacy and 2 humans for modern were primarily "spells stapled to a body" type of decks, and the #1 played card across all 3 formats out of 12 decks is aether vial. it certainly says something.
Eldrazi was the only aggro deck in the Legacy Top 4. Death & Taxes is prison, and the Death's Shadow list is tempo (or possibly midrange, but either way it isn't aggro).
Latest word from Rudy is that prices of new sealed product is going up 9/1.
Sad, frustrating but not surprising in the least.
I mean, simple inflation means prices will go up eventually. The current standard price of $3.99 for booster packs was set back in 2006. That's about $5 in today's money.
Seems like a good time to unban Stoneforge Mystic. Humans might have a really hard time answering T3 Batterskull unless they Reflector Mage the token. Even that isn't a great answer to it, though!
I agree it’s a good time to unban SFM, but humans has other options. Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter can prevent someone from playing a SFM on turn 2 if humans is on the play. Also, humans can sideboard in Hostage Taker and Reclamation Sage. In any case, this is more proof that SFM, like Jace and BBE, wouldn’t break the format.
How does Kitesail Freebooter stop someone from playing Stoneforge Mystic? It can't exile creatures.
It could exile the equipment that the Stoneforge searches up, though.
Realistically, Wizards will not stop printing good creatures, and unless they start keeping an eye on things, they will not stop printing Humans. What I hope for is not a ban, but some 'hey here is a 1cmc hate card for tribal', that is clearly targeted at decks like Merfolk, Humans, even Eldrazi.
But more seriously, they could always reprint Engineered Plague, although that's 3 rather than 1. Though it does have the unfortunate effect of hurting tribal decks that no one sees as a problem.
Would the Judgment Wish cycle just immediately get broken? Or would it fix the old "not enough sb slots" question without changing the rules of deck construction and sideboards?
I don't think they'd either get broken or fix anything in regards to sideboard slots.
I'd be okay with a KCI ban from a logistical stance. Anyone who has attended a tournament where ***** went off the rails because people went to turns and took an extra fifteen minutes in most rounds understands the suffering.
A swap ban with KCI for Second Sunrise could make sense.
How in the world would that make any sense? Eggs didn't even bother with Krark-Clan Ironworks until after Second Sunrise was banned. You do the swap ban and you just bring back the Eggs deck that was judged worthy of banning to begin with.
I mean, Black is supposed to get the best removal spells (with White in second place), but White gets the best removal spell in all of Modern, Path to Exile.
While it's possible they "only" unbanned Jace to sell packs, it's also possible that they had him on their minds as a possible unban for a while, and decided to put him in the set so that whenever they did decide to unban him, he wouldn't hit $200 on the spot. Or it's possible it's a combination of the two, i.e. that they put Jace in the set with a possible unban in mind for him, and then realized the set wasn't worth much and they decided to therefore time the unbanning in accordance with its release.
I don't think it's proper to assert that a particular explanation is correct unless you have real evidence. And maybe you do, but you didn't present it in this post, you just asserted this without backup.
Although:Well, they could've dropped the price of booster packs a little.
The problem is that since then, the value of the sets have gone down, with them becoming increasingly "top heavy" and with a lower EV. That is not a problem in and of itself, but they haven't dropped the MSRP down to correspond with that. I think they should go back to $7 or at least $8. Maybe they just don't want to actually drop prices and just figure inflation will eventually fix the problem for them.
There are some other cards that may qualify, depending on what exactly you mean by "not because of a particular deck, but because of being too prolific." For example, Jace in Standard. Obviously, the deck everyone had in mind was Caw-Blade, but that was really just the best Jace shell. Only half of the Top 8 decks at Grand Prix Dallas 2011 was Caw-Blade, but Jace still managed the perfect 32/32 penetration (something that I believe has only been accomplished at the GP/PT level by Brainstorm in Legacy and Courser of Kruphix in Theros Block Constructed). So does Jace's ban count as occurring because of Caw-Blade being too good, or because he was just everywhere irrespective of Caw-Blade? There's also Deathrite Shaman in Legacy, which was hugely prolific but whose 38% metashare wasn't that high compared to other cards banned for being everywhere, does that count.
Although I feel Smuggler's Copter, and possibly everything else in that batch, would have been spared had people not disliked that Standard format so much. I don't think it saw as much play as Mutavault did during RTR-Theros Standard, and I think Mutavault might have been more warping--Smuggler's Copter just was a good fit for a lot of decks, but Mutavault actively affected deck construction by making it harder to play more than 2 colors. The difference, as far as I can tell, is that attendance was stable during RTR-Theros but was declining when Smuggler's Copter was legal, though there were more factors in the decline than just Smuggler's Copter of course, or even the other cards they banned.
Also, your comparison of "30+" versus "7" is inaccurate also. First, Twin's usual suite was 4x Exarch+2x Pestermite+4x Splinter Twin which is 10, not 7. Now you might say that's still a lot less than 30+. But to get to that 30+ you have to include the various cards used to actually get the combo together and protect it, so you'd have to then start counting the Serum Visions and Remands and other cards that Twin ran to find or protect the combo.
Er, what are you basing this on? If it's the SCG Open, Infect and Affinity were basically absent in that. Eldrazi Winter was out in full force, but I think a lot of that had to do with (1) people not expecting the deck (I looked at various discussions beforehand about what people thought the best decks were, Eldrazi was not on people's radar in general) and (2) the ease of putting it together back on the old Modern decks. I think we'd need to see another such event before we could try to make strong conclusions about it... but even from the event in question, your conclusions aren't making sense.
Even accepting the proposition that Ancient Stirrings is inherently better than Ponder in the decks that currently run it, that doesn't mean it's a dissonance for it to be legal while Ponder isn't. The thing is, in a whole lot of other decks, Ponder is way better.
I do generally agree that Preordain could probably be unbanned, but the strength of UWx Control does give me a little pause in that area. I think I'd rather see Splinter Twin return at this point.
Is there any particular reason to believe they won't unban Splinter Twin? Have they stated anything to that effect?
It could exile the equipment that the Stoneforge searches up, though.
But more seriously, they could always reprint Engineered Plague, although that's 3 rather than 1. Though it does have the unfortunate effect of hurting tribal decks that no one sees as a problem.