Bitterblossom: it would allow Faeries to become a deck, which would suffer against aggro decks and wouldn't have an easy Jund match-up, moreover if Jund plays also Bitterblossom. Outside Faeries, the card is easily playable, and would definitely bury the hopes of control decks to appear in Modern.
Artifact lands: with the new legend rule, Mox Opal is more powerful than artifact lands in Affinity. Moreover, artifact lands can be used in more decks with Trinket Mage, Thirst for Knowledge or any planeswalker named Tezzeret, while Mox Opal is played only in that archetype. Moreover, an Affinity deck relying in artifact lands would be easier to hate, so I'd try that change.
Bitter blossom is too slow and doesn't provide immediate gratification so I doubt June would use it. Confidant at least nets you a 2/1 body before you get to trigger it.
Artifact lands are way way way more powerful then mox opal. You have to realize around 1/2 the robot deck would get scrapped for more powerful plays with these unbanned. Free 2/2s Free 4/4S. Each land is effectivly 2 mana with affinity. Shrapnel blast becomes a huge threat as does disciple of the vault. Affinity would eaisly be tier 0 with these unbanned.
If pod or Snapcaster or shaman gets banned that will send people over the edge in modern.
If this is meant to compete with legacy (or at least get around the stupid reserved list) it's sure as hell not allowing for a card pool that allows for good decks. Yea lets just ban some of the best cards in each set in the past 3 years.
Starting to seem more like "let's keep banning good decks" instead of forcing innovation or letting new cards come out each set.
Modern is too ban happy it seems.
In the 3 LGS I play modern at, 95% of the modern players have a Niche card that if it got banned they would outright quit. I'm not sure if everyone has this feeling. If DRS gets the axe though, I'll be in legacy and never look back...
Unban Ponder, Bloodbraid Elf, Green Sun's Zenith, Wild Nacatl, and Bitterblossom.
Ban nothing.
To clarify a bit. He suggested ponder, BBE, Green Sun, Nacatl would come off if wizards did a larger unban of 4+ cards at once. He did say the only true candidate for a 1 card unban would be Bitter blossom.
Then again he mentions GGT on the same power level as Second Sunrise and Seathing Song... so I personally take the article with a large grain of salt.
UB
Instant
Choose one - Look at target opponents hand choose a non-land card with CMC 3 or less that player discards that card or counter target spell with CMC 3 or less.
No lists. That was ages ago. You wouldnt play it like that now anyway. Too many new toys to play with from more recent sets.
Sadly, once Legacy gets its mitts on a deck list, people cant see past that build. You always end up with the argument 'those cards are horrible'. But people have to learn to use what they have instead of wanting the same deck list across all formats.
Can you prove that there are more people that would quit the format if Jace was unbanned than people who would join it?
Gonna piggyback this. If the argument that "people would leave modern if he got unbanned" is legitimate enough then theres no reason to discredit the counterarugment "more people would play modern if he got unbanned." Either way, there's no way to prove either side is right unless someone has a time machine.
What you are not understanding is history has shown players shy away from JTMS. Wotc has the data from when JTMS was legal in Standard. and yes, people shied away from playing Standard because JTMS was played. Wotc can not afford to see if JTMS would have the same effect on Modern. Not now at least.
Standard is a different beast then Modern. It's such a smaller card pool. Right now in my local meta, many players refuse to play modern except durring PTQ season. It's becoming harder and harder to fire off FNM's and even tuesday nights (modern at one of my LGS). Each time players invested into decks there have been bannings of key components (bloodbraid/seething song/etc) and it has caused our local Modern population to dwindle into oblivion. On the flip side to that coin, The majority of those players that left modern have picked up legacy. When I confront them, 90% of them say the same thing "I wanted to play in a format with cards like JTMS" Jace is very iconic magic card. The only reason people disliked it really was the limited card pool making him the best candidate by a large margin.
IIRC Overextended the top tiered decks didn't run JTMS. Zoo / 12 Post? no Jace there... and I'll stand by my argument that "Players didn't like it in standard" is a weak reason to pre-ban a card before it has a chance to prove its overpowered. If cards like Bitterblossom/AV/Jace/Ponder/Preordain/SoTM came off the banlist and control ravaged the format pushing every viable deck out then I will concede that they should be banned. They never got to prove if they are or are not that strong however.
So, basically turning Modern into Legacy-Lite and ignoring the whole concept of what Modern is supposed to be?
Thats an opinion, In my opinion Modern is suppose to be legacy lite. Until WoTC states exactly what they're trying to accomplish, then the cards that were on the banlist when the format got announced will always feel out of place on the ban list.
What reasoning is this to ban cards?
"We don't like this card" Bitterblossom
"We don't like this mechanic" Golgari Grave-Troll/Dread Return
"We need to ban something from blue" Jace
"It was unpopular in standard" Sword of the Meek
Until WoTC dictates that this format is not a legacy-lite, and is ment to be a BGx Grindfest then people are going to defend cards on the banlist because there is no sane reason for them to be there.
Bitterblossom beats Raise the Alarm in contention for that deck since black card comes with a significantly better dowerry (Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek). White doesn't contribute nearly as much to the deck and would probably force you to go deeper and play a third color, but why would you want to do that when black gets you just about everything you might need to make the deck work, especially with Bitterblossom in the mix.
Truth be told, I'm not that much up on current events regarding the Modern metagame, but I gather that the decks most hurt would be the ones that are ill equipped for dealing with Bitterblossom itself. UWR control would be on the short list most certainly. In the larger scheme of things other combo decks would surely be hit since against those decks the UBPolymorph deck would be packing counters as well as hand disruption.
I can't present a decklist at this point, but something very much like what I'm talking about existed in Old Extended, made by GerryT I think.
The Polymorph deck I'm talking about would look like something that might come to mind as the lovechild of Twin (combo finish and counters) and Jund (hand disruption). I can't really imagine that many people would enjoy playing against such a thing.
Why hasn't this style deck been viable with the current cards? We have hand disruption, we have some counters. You're just saying UB is the end all be all best combination to protect a combo? If this was true then wouldn't UB control have a better showing in the current meta? Bitterblossoms wouldn't push any blue/black control shell except fae up into the contentions, and even then, I feel that a WB token or soulsister build would be more consistent and benefit more from the cards unbanning.
As stated before, Raise the Alarm is a much better choice for a Polymorph strategy. It allows you to keep mana open to answer threats and EOT drop in your tokens to morph the following turn. Either way, I don't know why Polymorph is being discussed, it's not a strong deck, and wouldn't warp the format due to BB unban.
With Ooze in the format, I can see Dread Return coming off the list. I'm not usually the type of person to say "when an answer for X comes out, then bring it off" but Ooze is is a vast amount of main decks and is good on its own even VS a non-grave based deck. Dread Return really only brings about 1 deck type (dredge) into the light and that is a very very shaky game 2 and 3. Before Ooze was in the format I thought DR was too powerful.
"Was not well received in standard" is such a sketchy reason to ban a card from the format:
Bitterblossom was hated in standard but that is such a smaller card pool with limited answers. Modern is a different beast and could handle this card with no issues. It's a shame this card is banned because its not good enough for legacy and so many people enjoy the card.
Bitter blossom is too slow and doesn't provide immediate gratification so I doubt June would use it. Confidant at least nets you a 2/1 body before you get to trigger it.
Artifact lands are way way way more powerful then mox opal. You have to realize around 1/2 the robot deck would get scrapped for more powerful plays with these unbanned. Free 2/2s Free 4/4S. Each land is effectivly 2 mana with affinity. Shrapnel blast becomes a huge threat as does disciple of the vault. Affinity would eaisly be tier 0 with these unbanned.
In the 3 LGS I play modern at, 95% of the modern players have a Niche card that if it got banned they would outright quit. I'm not sure if everyone has this feeling. If DRS gets the axe though, I'll be in legacy and never look back...
To clarify a bit. He suggested ponder, BBE, Green Sun, Nacatl would come off if wizards did a larger unban of 4+ cards at once. He did say the only true candidate for a 1 card unban would be Bitter blossom.
Then again he mentions GGT on the same power level as Second Sunrise and Seathing Song... so I personally take the article with a large grain of salt.
Instant
Choose one - Look at target opponents hand choose a non-land card with CMC 3 or less that player discards that card or counter target spell with CMC 3 or less.
Probably no change, Hoping for unbans. Can we play with the cards we own please?
I doubt WoTC would ban something because a card that is not even printed yet would have too much synergy with it.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/293-dredge-the-forgotten-standard.html
That was pre-TSP standard dredge. It was not a fast combo deck. It had no turn 3 win. It was midrange grind.
UUU
You may reveal your hand and discard up to two cards of an opponents choice rather then play CounterspellX's Mana cost.
Counter target spell. Lose life equal to that spells converted Mana cost.
Gonna piggyback this. If the argument that "people would leave modern if he got unbanned" is legitimate enough then theres no reason to discredit the counterarugment "more people would play modern if he got unbanned." Either way, there's no way to prove either side is right unless someone has a time machine.
Standard is a different beast then Modern. It's such a smaller card pool. Right now in my local meta, many players refuse to play modern except durring PTQ season. It's becoming harder and harder to fire off FNM's and even tuesday nights (modern at one of my LGS). Each time players invested into decks there have been bannings of key components (bloodbraid/seething song/etc) and it has caused our local Modern population to dwindle into oblivion. On the flip side to that coin, The majority of those players that left modern have picked up legacy. When I confront them, 90% of them say the same thing "I wanted to play in a format with cards like JTMS" Jace is very iconic magic card. The only reason people disliked it really was the limited card pool making him the best candidate by a large margin.
IIRC Overextended the top tiered decks didn't run JTMS. Zoo / 12 Post? no Jace there... and I'll stand by my argument that "Players didn't like it in standard" is a weak reason to pre-ban a card before it has a chance to prove its overpowered. If cards like Bitterblossom/AV/Jace/Ponder/Preordain/SoTM came off the banlist and control ravaged the format pushing every viable deck out then I will concede that they should be banned. They never got to prove if they are or are not that strong however.
Thats an opinion, In my opinion Modern is suppose to be legacy lite. Until WoTC states exactly what they're trying to accomplish, then the cards that were on the banlist when the format got announced will always feel out of place on the ban list.
What reasoning is this to ban cards?
"We don't like this card" Bitterblossom
"We don't like this mechanic" Golgari Grave-Troll/Dread Return
"We need to ban something from blue" Jace
"It was unpopular in standard" Sword of the Meek
Until WoTC dictates that this format is not a legacy-lite, and is ment to be a BGx Grindfest then people are going to defend cards on the banlist because there is no sane reason for them to be there.
Why hasn't this style deck been viable with the current cards? We have hand disruption, we have some counters. You're just saying UB is the end all be all best combination to protect a combo? If this was true then wouldn't UB control have a better showing in the current meta? Bitterblossoms wouldn't push any blue/black control shell except fae up into the contentions, and even then, I feel that a WB token or soulsister build would be more consistent and benefit more from the cards unbanning.
As stated before, Raise the Alarm is a much better choice for a Polymorph strategy. It allows you to keep mana open to answer threats and EOT drop in your tokens to morph the following turn. Either way, I don't know why Polymorph is being discussed, it's not a strong deck, and wouldn't warp the format due to BB unban.
"Was not well received in standard" is such a sketchy reason to ban a card from the format:
Bitterblossom was hated in standard but that is such a smaller card pool with limited answers. Modern is a different beast and could handle this card with no issues. It's a shame this card is banned because its not good enough for legacy and so many people enjoy the card.