Allied fetches in Modern would do the same thing that Enemy fetches did in Legacy. When Misty Rainforest was printed the UG decks of Legacy loved that now they could fetch for that single basic Forest or an Island with the same land. This helped avoid Wasteland. In Modern it will give similar perks to allied guild colors and shards.
For example, a UB Fish deck in Modern runs this mana base
This deck runs 6 basic Islands and 4 blue fetches. A virtual 10 basic lands.
Allied fetches in the format barely change this list. It is possibly sub optimal to run Polluted Delta in this list as there are no basic Swamps. It would only give your opponent a chance to guess your color combination correctly.
This list runs 9 fetches. It has 19 sources of red mana and 18 sources of green mana. It has a virtual (because of fetches) 5 basic forests and a virtual 7 basic mountains.
In most cases I won't be changing the number of fetches, so this one has 9 still. This list still has 19 sources of red mana and 18 sources of green mana. That's the same as without allied fetches. So the mana base doesn't produce it's colors any better. This is because of the need for basic lands. Where this mana base does improve is that it now has a virtual 10 basic Mountains and a virtual 6 basic Forests. So it is now easier to access the basic lands of an allied 2 color deck. This will result in less damage from shocklands.
Let's move on to a 3 color deck. To start let's look at a wedge 3 color list. These wedges get the full benefit of having 8 on color fetches. First up is UWR Control. This one is from a Draw Go version of the deck.
8 fetches here. The deck has 20 blue sources, 13 red sources, and 17 white sources. It has 6 virtual basic Islands, 9 virtual basic Mountains, and 5 virtual basic Plains.
Adding 4 Flooded Strand for 2 Arid Mesa, Sulfur Falls, and Mystic Gate maximizes the amount of fetches the list can hope to have. This changed mana base has 20 blue sources, 14 red sources, and 18 white sources. It has 10 virtual basic Islands, 7 virtual basic Mountains, and 5 virtual basic Plains. This configuration makes accessing red mana more painful and blue mana less painful. But only slightly increases access to colors.
Onto something more interesting. Junk (GBW) has a mana base that looks like this.
This list has 8 on color fetches, 19 green sources, 16 white sources, 15 black sources. It has 5 virtual basic Forests, 10 virtual basic Swamps, and 5 virtual basic Plains.
Which has 4 on color fetches, 4 off color fetches, 16 green sources, 17 red sources, and 17 black sources. Jund has 6 virtual basic Forests, 9 virtual basic Swamps, and 0 basic Mountain. Junk has 6 more ways to access a basic land than Jund does, even though Junk only runs 1 more basic land.
Adding allied fetches to these mana bases is interesting. Lets look at Junk first.
To maximize the amount of fetches in this deck I cut 1 Horizon Canopy, 1 Twilight Mire, and 1 Woodland Cemetery from the original list. I then added 3 Windswept Heath. 19 green sources, 18 white sources, 16 black sources. 10 virtual Swamps, 8 virtual Forests, 8 virtual basic Plains. Adding more fetches to the deck made it easier to access basic lands. This helps fight Blood Moon, the most powerful nonbasic hate in the format. But it does not negate the effects of Blood Moon.
I didn't feel like cutting Blackcleave Cliffs was an option, that land is nuts, so we will keep only 8 fetches in this deck. Changing the Marsh Flats to Bloodstained Mire makes Stomping Ground more accessible. Wooded Foothills instead of Misty Rainforest makes Blood Crypt more accessible. Obviously these are good things. But there are still 16 green sources, 17 black sources, and 17 red sources. It has the same amount of virtual basics as before. The allied fetches don't make this mana base better, only slightly more consistent in land sequencing.
Lastly I just want to show what an Esper Control mana base might look like with allied fetches. It is something that isn't in the format currently. I will base it heavily on the UWR list from earlier.
Here we see that Esper with allied fetches is identical in color production as current UWR builds.
I was going to do a 5c Tribal Flames deck too. But now that I look at the mana base the 12 fetches don't change in number. I think the correct 12 become the Naya colors, RWG, because those are the three main colors of the deck. It will make it a little easier to get 5 colors with 3 lands for casting early Tribal flames. But things that cost 2 of a color remain difficult.
Hopefully this shows how allied fetches will benefit modern when they are reprinted.
Master of Waves has been really good against me so far because there are only 2 Maelstrom Pulses in my list to kill it. I've been trying to think of a way to deal with it. Infest and Anger of the Gods deal with it somewhat. Infest kills it and its tokens, unless they have multiple lords. AotG kills the double lords and tokens but leaves the Master. So neither is perfect. I was wracking my brain for a 4 drop that would help. Thought of Skinrender. Not exactly what I want. Also then thought of Reaper of the Wilds as a card that could see play not for killing MotW but just because it is hard to kill and has some good abilities. Not saying it is a staple or anything, but it isn't the worst card ever for the deck. Thrun is probably just better though.
If GSZ was unbanned decks would run a 3-1 split of Goyf-Ooze similar to what has been run in Legacy. Jund did not run GSZ when it was legal because it was horrible cascade target. They also did not have DRS in the deck to tutor up. Green decks would tend to start with 4. That's the way it was before they banned it.
The Todd Anderson article has many valid points. A lot of the cards on the BL are probably okay to come off. That will happen over time. The format is "fine" right now. I enjoy playing it, but I will admit it could be better. It could also be a lot worse.
Let's say for example that Rite of Flame was not on the BL, the format would be broken and not very fun for a large amount of the player base. For those of you that remember the first Modern Pro Tour, it was full of turn 2 decks. So a slower format helps allow people to play MTG. For example, I recently got trounced on MTGO by a Mono G devotion deck. There is a lot of diversity if you are willing to brew.
One important thing to keep in mind with regards to what Wizards is doing for the format is that the first set created since the inception of Modern was Theros. This means that WOTC came up with Modern and then immediately said, "Let's reprint Thoughtseize." This means that more reprints are on the way. I would guess we will start to see older cards introduced into the format soon. They couldn't do it earlier because they didn't know there was a reason to. It might be a little bit longer, but they probably wanted to see how the format would work. Good things are on the way though.
I don't think anything should be banned at the moment. I think Birthing Pod will eventually get the axe, because it will eventually deserve it. I don't think that time is here quite yet. But every set makes it better. Just look at what Archangel of Thune did for Melira.
I think the following cards should come off:
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Golgari Grave-Troll
I think that eventually we will see JTMS, BBE, and Bitterblossom as well. But it could be 10 years.
For those curious, I play Jund online. I'm 1-2 against mono green devotion. I play no abrupt decays because it is not good enough right now. Not killing Pod or Master of Waves is a big deal. So I really don't think it should be banned.
Edit: GSZ is too powerful for the current format. If a lot of other things were also unbanned, then it would be fine. But as is, no way Jose. Also, I said Nacatl is fine, but it is possible it would make Countercat a deck again, and that is a good reason for it to be banned.
I think the Countryside Crusher/Young Pyromancer/Goyf deck is probably best labled as Aggro Loam. I know it isn't exactly like previous iterations of the deck, but it seems close enough. Maybe PyroLoam
If you just want to beat BGx and Pod then play RG Tron. It is heavily favored verse BGx and Melira. Favored against Kiki-Pod. Plus you get the bonus of laughing at UWR when your Emrakul resolves and they count how many lands they have.
So after the world champs the straight BG list was popping up a lot. I kept asking myself why not play Bolt? Obviously at the world champs, the lists were heavily metagamed to beat UWR. Bolt is not that great in that matchup, so a lack of red at the world champs makes sense. I really think that the best build of jund currently plays both Bolt and some number of scavenging ooze (2-4). I think it also wants tectonic edge, but I am not sure if that is doable with a 3+ color mana base.
Idk whether or not we want white, I think it is a meta call. Obviously lingering souls is very powerful. 4c jund can probably not play tectonic edge. This tells me that if you expect a lot of UWx and want to beat it, then 3 or less colors is correct. If you are not too worried about UWx then you can add white.
Does this line of thinking make sense to anyone else?
Spreading Seas does not change the name of the card. It does change the card's land type. So the enchanted Urza's Mine now has the subtype Island instead of the subtype Urza's Mine.
My question is do the other two Urza's Lands tap for 1 mana or more than that? Do Urza's Lands care about the name of the card or the subtype?
This has financial implications. With standard ending in March, people will want to dump standard staples 6 months before rotation. So Return to Ravnica staples will drop heavily in about 7 months. Innistrad staples have only been dropping for around a month. Standard should be cheaper for FNMers at least.
I think what needs to be understood is why the decks that did well this weekend did well. 5 of the top 8 were decks that relied on artifacts (3 pod, 2 affinity). With Eggs no longer being a deck, people looked at their sideboards and thought they wouldn't need artifact hate. So they took it out. For reference there were 5 Stony Silence, 7 Ancient Grudge, 3 Nature's Claim, 3 Shatterstorm, 1 Disenchant, 4 Ingot Chewer, 2 Kataki, 1 Wear/Tear, and 1 Damping Matrix in the top 16. So on average less than 2 artifact removal per deck. The main think to come out was the Stony Silences which were very strong against Eggs, but also hated on affinity and pod. There were also only 18 copies of graveyard hate cards in the top 16.
So what happened in this tournament was Pod and Affinity had much less hate targeting them than they have had recently. This allowed them to just run people over. The metagame will adjust and the next tournament there will be more artifact hate, these decks will have a harder time.
Scapeshift did well because the format is currently counterspell light. It looked pretty light on blue in general.
I thought the tournament was a really big success and very entertaining to watch. The format seems very healthy and fun. I think wizards might unban Golgari Grave Troll because dredgevine is a cool deck that could use a tiny push (Raphael Levy finished near top 16). The lack of blue might be a signal that Preordain could come off. It would help Scapeshift, Storm, Twin, and Blue in general. Serum Visions just isn't good enough. Ancestral Visions and Ponder are likely too good. Although I could see a future where both Ponder and Preordain are legal.
Geist of Saint Win is a horrible name. It sounds like the nickname for a card... It is also dumb. WUR Midrange is appropriate. However, I prefer the name Geist Red. It says a lot in the least amount of syllables. It tells you what colors are in the deck (Geist plus Red). It gives a lot of info about what the deck does (burn stuff, play Geist).
Geist Red or UWR Midrange. The slower version should be called UWR Control.
As for the Jund, Junk, 4c midrange debate, the important thing to remember is that Jund and Junk are the names people know. In addition, all of these decks are BGxy. So keeping the Jund/Junk names are very useful. So in my opinion:
Jund: BGR
Junk: BGW
Bug: BUG
Blue Jund: BGUR (RUGB hahah rugby)
White Jund: BGWR (I don't have a problem with Spirit Jund or Junk'd either)
Just my 2 cents.
As for my meta prediction in order of expected prevalence:
1. BGxy
2. WUR (midrange and control)
3. Pod (Kiki and Melira)
4. Twin
5. Tron (U and RG)
6. Elves
7. GRx
8. Affinity
9. Scapeshift
10. Infect
11. Living Death
12. Delver (various but mostly grixis)
13. Storm Variants
All the Stony Silences will get left at home. Affinity will do well. Wear/Tear does a lot of damage to decks that are doubly vulnerable. Scapeshift wins against an aggro deck in the finals.
I have been predicting a reprint of the Onslaught fetches in the block after Theros. Currently extended has fetch-shock manabases. So it is obviously okay there. I believe they would not want that to be the case in standard. For modern, it seems silly to not have all 10. As a non rotating format, one that will eventually replace legacy, it makes no sense to not have the complete cycle of 10 fetches. It was okay when it was just the allied colored ones preZendikar. For veteran players, maybe even new players, it seems strange that there is a set of enemy colored lands available and not the same allied colors. I don't think there is another example of this (at least with lands anyone would want to play).
Allied fetches would slightly increase the mana capabilities of the format. For example Misty Rainforest is inferior to Flooded Strand in UWR as it cannot search for a basic plains or a Sacred Foundry. Allied colored decks like UW would see a much more significant increase in their mana efficiency than 3 or 4 color decks probably allowing for UUU and WWW in the same deck without too much concern.
For example, a UB Fish deck in Modern runs this mana base
6 Island
4 Watery Grave
4 Mutavault
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Darkslick Shores
This deck runs 6 basic Islands and 4 blue fetches. A virtual 10 basic lands.
Allied fetches in the format barely change this list. It is possibly sub optimal to run Polluted Delta in this list as there are no basic Swamps. It would only give your opponent a chance to guess your color combination correctly.
Then here is Gruul's mana base.
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
This list runs 9 fetches. It has 19 sources of red mana and 18 sources of green mana. It has a virtual (because of fetches) 5 basic forests and a virtual 7 basic mountains.
Now here is the deck with Allied Fetches.
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Windswept Heath
4 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
In most cases I won't be changing the number of fetches, so this one has 9 still. This list still has 19 sources of red mana and 18 sources of green mana. That's the same as without allied fetches. So the mana base doesn't produce it's colors any better. This is because of the need for basic lands. Where this mana base does improve is that it now has a virtual 10 basic Mountains and a virtual 6 basic Forests. So it is now easier to access the basic lands of an allied 2 color deck. This will result in less damage from shocklands.
Let's move on to a 3 color deck. To start let's look at a wedge 3 color list. These wedges get the full benefit of having 8 on color fetches. First up is UWR Control. This one is from a Draw Go version of the deck.
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Mystic Gate
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Tectonic Edge
8 fetches here. The deck has 20 blue sources, 13 red sources, and 17 white sources. It has 6 virtual basic Islands, 9 virtual basic Mountains, and 5 virtual basic Plains.
Adding 4 Flooded Strand for 2 Arid Mesa, Sulfur Falls, and Mystic Gate maximizes the amount of fetches the list can hope to have. This changed mana base has 20 blue sources, 14 red sources, and 18 white sources. It has 10 virtual basic Islands, 7 virtual basic Mountains, and 5 virtual basic Plains. This configuration makes accessing red mana more painful and blue mana less painful. But only slightly increases access to colors.
Onto something more interesting. Junk (GBW) has a mana base that looks like this.
1 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
4 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Woodland Cemetery
This list has 8 on color fetches, 19 green sources, 16 white sources, 15 black sources. It has 5 virtual basic Forests, 10 virtual basic Swamps, and 5 virtual basic Plains.
Compare that to another BG midrange deck, Jund.
2 Blood Crypt
1 Forest
3 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
3 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
Which has 4 on color fetches, 4 off color fetches, 16 green sources, 17 red sources, and 17 black sources. Jund has 6 virtual basic Forests, 9 virtual basic Swamps, and 0 basic Mountain. Junk has 6 more ways to access a basic land than Jund does, even though Junk only runs 1 more basic land.
Adding allied fetches to these mana bases is interesting. Lets look at Junk first.
1 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
4 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
To maximize the amount of fetches in this deck I cut 1 Horizon Canopy, 1 Twilight Mire, and 1 Woodland Cemetery from the original list. I then added 3 Windswept Heath. 19 green sources, 18 white sources, 16 black sources. 10 virtual Swamps, 8 virtual Forests, 8 virtual basic Plains. Adding more fetches to the deck made it easier to access basic lands. This helps fight Blood Moon, the most powerful nonbasic hate in the format. But it does not negate the effects of Blood Moon.
Here is Jund with allied fetches.
2 Blood Crypt
1 Forest
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
3 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
I didn't feel like cutting Blackcleave Cliffs was an option, that land is nuts, so we will keep only 8 fetches in this deck. Changing the Marsh Flats to Bloodstained Mire makes Stomping Ground more accessible. Wooded Foothills instead of Misty Rainforest makes Blood Crypt more accessible. Obviously these are good things. But there are still 16 green sources, 17 black sources, and 17 red sources. It has the same amount of virtual basics as before. The allied fetches don't make this mana base better, only slightly more consistent in land sequencing.
Lastly I just want to show what an Esper Control mana base might look like with allied fetches. It is something that isn't in the format currently. I will base it heavily on the UWR list from earlier.
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
1 Mystic Gate
1 Drowned Catacomb
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Tectonic Edge
Here we see that Esper with allied fetches is identical in color production as current UWR builds.
I was going to do a 5c Tribal Flames deck too. But now that I look at the mana base the 12 fetches don't change in number. I think the correct 12 become the Naya colors, RWG, because those are the three main colors of the deck. It will make it a little easier to get 5 colors with 3 lands for casting early Tribal flames. But things that cost 2 of a color remain difficult.
Hopefully this shows how allied fetches will benefit modern when they are reprinted.
Let's say for example that Rite of Flame was not on the BL, the format would be broken and not very fun for a large amount of the player base. For those of you that remember the first Modern Pro Tour, it was full of turn 2 decks. So a slower format helps allow people to play MTG. For example, I recently got trounced on MTGO by a Mono G devotion deck. There is a lot of diversity if you are willing to brew.
One important thing to keep in mind with regards to what Wizards is doing for the format is that the first set created since the inception of Modern was Theros. This means that WOTC came up with Modern and then immediately said, "Let's reprint Thoughtseize." This means that more reprints are on the way. I would guess we will start to see older cards introduced into the format soon. They couldn't do it earlier because they didn't know there was a reason to. It might be a little bit longer, but they probably wanted to see how the format would work. Good things are on the way though.
I don't think anything should be banned at the moment. I think Birthing Pod will eventually get the axe, because it will eventually deserve it. I don't think that time is here quite yet. But every set makes it better. Just look at what Archangel of Thune did for Melira.
I think the following cards should come off:
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Golgari Grave-Troll
I think that eventually we will see JTMS, BBE, and Bitterblossom as well. But it could be 10 years.
For those curious, I play Jund online. I'm 1-2 against mono green devotion. I play no abrupt decays because it is not good enough right now. Not killing Pod or Master of Waves is a big deal. So I really don't think it should be banned.
Edit: GSZ is too powerful for the current format. If a lot of other things were also unbanned, then it would be fine. But as is, no way Jose. Also, I said Nacatl is fine, but it is possible it would make Countercat a deck again, and that is a good reason for it to be banned.
Idk whether or not we want white, I think it is a meta call. Obviously lingering souls is very powerful. 4c jund can probably not play tectonic edge. This tells me that if you expect a lot of UWx and want to beat it, then 3 or less colors is correct. If you are not too worried about UWx then you can add white.
Does this line of thinking make sense to anyone else?
Spreading Seas does not change the name of the card. It does change the card's land type. So the enchanted Urza's Mine now has the subtype Island instead of the subtype Urza's Mine.
My question is do the other two Urza's Lands tap for 1 mana or more than that? Do Urza's Lands care about the name of the card or the subtype?
So what happened in this tournament was Pod and Affinity had much less hate targeting them than they have had recently. This allowed them to just run people over. The metagame will adjust and the next tournament there will be more artifact hate, these decks will have a harder time.
Scapeshift did well because the format is currently counterspell light. It looked pretty light on blue in general.
I thought the tournament was a really big success and very entertaining to watch. The format seems very healthy and fun. I think wizards might unban Golgari Grave Troll because dredgevine is a cool deck that could use a tiny push (Raphael Levy finished near top 16). The lack of blue might be a signal that Preordain could come off. It would help Scapeshift, Storm, Twin, and Blue in general. Serum Visions just isn't good enough. Ancestral Visions and Ponder are likely too good. Although I could see a future where both Ponder and Preordain are legal.
Geist Red or UWR Midrange. The slower version should be called UWR Control.
As for the Jund, Junk, 4c midrange debate, the important thing to remember is that Jund and Junk are the names people know. In addition, all of these decks are BGxy. So keeping the Jund/Junk names are very useful. So in my opinion:
Jund: BGR
Junk: BGW
Bug: BUG
Blue Jund: BGUR (RUGB hahah rugby)
White Jund: BGWR (I don't have a problem with Spirit Jund or Junk'd either)
Just my 2 cents.
As for my meta prediction in order of expected prevalence:
1. BGxy
2. WUR (midrange and control)
3. Pod (Kiki and Melira)
4. Twin
5. Tron (U and RG)
6. Elves
7. GRx
8. Affinity
9. Scapeshift
10. Infect
11. Living Death
12. Delver (various but mostly grixis)
13. Storm Variants
All the Stony Silences will get left at home. Affinity will do well. Wear/Tear does a lot of damage to decks that are doubly vulnerable. Scapeshift wins against an aggro deck in the finals.
Allied fetches would slightly increase the mana capabilities of the format. For example Misty Rainforest is inferior to Flooded Strand in UWR as it cannot search for a basic plains or a Sacred Foundry. Allied colored decks like UW would see a much more significant increase in their mana efficiency than 3 or 4 color decks probably allowing for UUU and WWW in the same deck without too much concern.