Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize, although I realize the latter is probably too powerful. But Iok should be part of every core set, so that BG midrange can be a part of nearly every standard.
Thoughtseize has seen Standard play twice in Lorwyn and Theros and never broke anything*. Having a third print run in a Standard set would be wonderful to make it accessible to Modern players too.
*Although it was played by Faeries, it wasn't really the oppressive part of the deck (IIRC the deck played Ancestral Visions as its one-drop over Thoughtseize while it was legal).
This is disappointing. Each time we are ready with the pitchforks to get something banned from Humans, someone says "Look, there's an Ancient Stirrings being cast" and people immediately lose their minds , forget the deck that is actually the bigger portion of the meta and go "argh this is so unfair!! I WANT TO SCRY BEFORE I DRAW!!".
Remain on Humans ban topic please.
Anyway, which archetypes do people talk about with the "Ancient Stirrings decks". KCI and Tron are the only ones really since Amulet Bloom, Hardenes Scales affinity or Lantern are scarcely played. Of the two, KCI is the one with multiple issues that I could see getting hit but Stirrings is such a secondary target that it could keep going. Given that Tron has its share of bad matchups and has periods when it doesn't win anything, it's awful the idea of killing a card that makes and archetype of its own for variety (of course, killing variety is exactly what pros want, but then, pros ain't our friends and their attempts to standardize Modern can keep being ignored).
EDIT: Man Alpha / Beta / Old sets Limited is so boring to watch... Magic may have seen better times but surely it was years or a decade after the beginning. Maybe the point is to make people think "That's old magic? Thank god we have M19"
She makes some good points for a ban from the deck including similarities to the already banned eggs deck and several other considerations.
Thoughts?
It's nice to see that Emma Handy's articles are enjoyable when she's not trying too hard to play heel.
Agree with most points: I can attest in the last Modern PTQ we had a KCI player went to time, the deck does take time when played by the average player and the mana speed of the ability combined with enormous consistence and resiliency does make it extremely tough.
That said, screw (since the other word ain't allowed) any "but the card is expensive" arguments when deciding which cards to ban (in this case Mox Opal). Trying to portray this with astroturf arguments like "customer confidence" when it's clearly "SCG store confidence in WotC not cutting their profit" is utterly lame. Using the price argument against banning a card is a giveaway that the card is indeed OP, and as a player, I don't lose confidence if a card gets banned as long as power level and metagame health are the criteria used. Nobody will suddenly sell his Goyfs, Jaces, Confidants and other overpriced jank cards just because "they could get hit by the banhammer just as Opal did".
Again, other than that, nice article. Extra points for defending Stirrings.
We need it. The format demands it. Decks won't be complete until it is realized on cardboard:
Zuramul, the Endless Void 2CC
Legendary Planeswalker - Zuramul
This spell can't be countered.
+1: create two 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn tokens with "Sacrifice this creature: add C
-3: Your opponents exile X permanents they control and / or cards in their hand, where X is the number of Eldrazi you control
-5: Creatures you control have Annhilator X, where X is their power.
3
Loyalty and abilities are a little conservative, but the double card - exile 4 play is saucy.
As to Humans, I think the Militia Bugler may be what tips it into 'watch out' territory. It was already amazing and now it gets Impulse on a 2/3 Vigilance Body?
Cool, thanks Wizards.
Humans is fine... I do think it's going to get better in the future though, just through iterating the current builds to maximize Bugler. Realistically speaking, what would you even eliminate from Humans to knock it down a peg if that were necessary? It doesn't have a single build around card, just a bunch of synergistic stuff. There's basically nothing in the deck that could reasonably be banned, Reflector Mage is the closest thing to being ban worthy, but if you got rid of that, the deck could shift to Fiend Hunter or Banisher Priest and lose essentially nothing.
Easy: Unclaimed territory. Human's case is one of critical mass regarding its manabase: along Ancient Ziggurat and Cavern of Souls, territory became the 9-12 lands that tap for any color without any pain. Nuke Territory and they lose enough consistency to cast Mantis Rider-Noble Hierarch-Kitesail Freebooter without any cost. Unlike Cavern, its banning doesn't hit other tier 2 decks like Eldrazi, Elves or Merfolk which can use the uncounterability but don't bother for the colors.
Other than that, Champion of the Parish and Thalia's Liutenant are the ones giving them the fastest draws and surviving red sweepers. The deck's clock gets much worse without them. Or Aether vial, which has always been on the verge of broken.
Or the best option of them all: don't ban anything, and bring back the right tool for the job. But looks like people would rather have the meta being 40 % humans before that happens.
Aw,crap, thought it was real. Was ready to savor the mountains of salt. Wish we could hav the announcement so we could officially single these noisy people out to the open.
Anyway, Explorations / Masterpieces and the like are crazy scarce, not that they're going to affect the price in the slightest. They will be good for hype and local stories of the guy who opened a Mind over Matter / Rofellos / Any Mox and now rocks in Commander with it*.
*Anyone opening a power 9 would totally get exempted of the ban list, at least for good amount of time.
Doesn't Tron have a horrible KCI matchup? With its rise it would be unwise to bring the Karns, KCI must have left a lot of Tron bodies in its wake this weekend.
How's the KCI-Infect matchup? Sounds like Infect has another free time just like against Tron so its position as a meta deck is probably warranted.
I swore all this time that the starting Mental Misstep ban followed Legacy's but the timeline shows that Modern pioneered it. Was it already that impopular at the time? With Extended dead and Standard not caring, it always took me by surprise that one of the potentially best cards for the format had been rejected that fast.
There's morbid curiosity to see it in action. Countering an Aether Vial on the draw sounds so good...
Nah, if there's "increasing disdain for Tron" the real meaning is that the same number of Tron haters are hating it even more. When prompted about a deck they don't want to face the answer it's either Lantern or Turns here. I haven't heard a player whining about Tron but there's a number of aggro players left salty after playing against Jeskai control who would instantly cheer for Tron in that match.
Are there Affinity experts here that could tell us whether Stirrings in Affinity is the fad of the month or the real deal? On the surface Affinity is a deck all about the speed and nut multiple permanent openings so it feels out of place and by the midgame it looks like Thoughtcast becomes better. There's three juicy targets in Inkmoth, Cranial Platinig and Ravager that could merit its place, though.
Design team is making too many cards that you either can't interact with or the way you interact is very narrow. Kaladesh is FULL of those and frankly vehicles is one of the worst design mistakes in years outside of individual OP cards.
It's not so much that just Goblin Chainsmuggler is so evil... it's the confluence of cards that together make red utterly dominant.
You can't block, you can't remove, Chandra, you can't destroy, Chandra, oh yea red went first you now have 40% less chance of winning.
I quite disagree with the bolded. I NEVER want to return to pre-planeswalker world where all you could do as the proactive player was to lay creatures that could be swept by Wrath of God and the answer to "how to play proactively against sweepers" was either "DON'T" or "play burn". Vehicles are fun, it's just that the offenders are way undercosted in their stats and / or crew cost.
Yeah Jitte is an inconsistency in the banned list but one I'm grateful for.
I don't play Legacy but given how Deathrite was a favorite card and it was its last bastion it is sad to see it go instead of just banning Delver which would have been very good riddance. That said, I smile when I remember that pro who said Deathrite was good because it gives him access to 4 colours while also giving him a maindeck way to combat such unfair stuff like the Lands deck or Blood Moon.
A little sad to see no changes, although considering the two fires on the other formats while also the fact that M19 did throw some bones promise a brighter future, although meanwhile it is going to funny if Tron is pushed out by the hate that KCI will proceed to ignore while going off.
Hot take: SFM gets unbanned, and gets reprinted in one of the upcoming Ravnica sets. Not too crazy to see Boros colors caring about equipment.
Except Kor are not native to Ravnica..
Ravnica has this Star Wars like cosmopolitan vibe where almost any scene features individuals from different species so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to put a Kor into it and declare Kor are there but were never featured before. It's not like its Lorwyn where even humans are out of the question.
This is probably a bit hard to execute so I bring two versions. First is the "current templating" version:
Holder of the ward WW
Creature - Kithkin cleric
When Holder of the ward enters the battlefield, search your opponent's library for a card and exile it face down.
Sacrifice Holder of the ward: reveal the card exiled with Holder of the ward. Counter target spell with the same name as the revealed card. It's controller shuffles the exiled card into his library.
2/2
This is the the simple version the former is trying to accomplish.
Holder of the ward WW
Creature - Kithkin cleric
When Holder of the ward enters the battlefield, secretly write a card name and put it face down
Sacrifice Holder of the ward: reveal the chosen name. Counter target spell with the same name as the name chosen.
2/2
The whole point is to restrict the utility of the creature to a single spell while not giving it away so the opponent can't know it in advance. Writing the name down is the quickest choice but it is a logistical nightmare while the first version lacks this problem but it is way more tedious as it needs to search a library for a potential single card. I'd bite the bullet and go for the second version.
Thoughtseize has seen Standard play twice in Lorwyn and Theros and never broke anything*. Having a third print run in a Standard set would be wonderful to make it accessible to Modern players too.
*Although it was played by Faeries, it wasn't really the oppressive part of the deck (IIRC the deck played Ancestral Visions as its one-drop over Thoughtseize while it was legal).
Remain on Humans ban topic please.
Anyway, which archetypes do people talk about with the "Ancient Stirrings decks". KCI and Tron are the only ones really since Amulet Bloom, Hardenes Scales affinity or Lantern are scarcely played. Of the two, KCI is the one with multiple issues that I could see getting hit but Stirrings is such a secondary target that it could keep going. Given that Tron has its share of bad matchups and has periods when it doesn't win anything, it's awful the idea of killing a card that makes and archetype of its own for variety (of course, killing variety is exactly what pros want, but then, pros ain't our friends and their attempts to standardize Modern can keep being ignored).
EDIT: Man Alpha / Beta / Old sets Limited is so boring to watch... Magic may have seen better times but surely it was years or a decade after the beginning. Maybe the point is to make people think "That's old magic? Thank god we have M19"
It's nice to see that Emma Handy's articles are enjoyable when she's not trying too hard to play heel.
Agree with most points: I can attest in the last Modern PTQ we had a KCI player went to time, the deck does take time when played by the average player and the mana speed of the ability combined with enormous consistence and resiliency does make it extremely tough.
That said, screw (since the other word ain't allowed) any "but the card is expensive" arguments when deciding which cards to ban (in this case Mox Opal). Trying to portray this with astroturf arguments like "customer confidence" when it's clearly "SCG store confidence in WotC not cutting their profit" is utterly lame. Using the price argument against banning a card is a giveaway that the card is indeed OP, and as a player, I don't lose confidence if a card gets banned as long as power level and metagame health are the criteria used. Nobody will suddenly sell his Goyfs, Jaces, Confidants and other overpriced jank cards just because "they could get hit by the banhammer just as Opal did".
Again, other than that, nice article. Extra points for defending Stirrings.
Zuramul, the Endless Void
2CC
Legendary Planeswalker - Zuramul
This spell can't be countered.
+1: create two 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn tokens with "Sacrifice this creature: add C
-3: Your opponents exile X permanents they control and / or cards in their hand, where X is the number of Eldrazi you control
-5: Creatures you control have Annhilator X, where X is their power.
3
Loyalty and abilities are a little conservative, but the double card - exile 4 play is saucy.
Easy: Unclaimed territory. Human's case is one of critical mass regarding its manabase: along Ancient Ziggurat and Cavern of Souls, territory became the 9-12 lands that tap for any color without any pain. Nuke Territory and they lose enough consistency to cast Mantis Rider-Noble Hierarch-Kitesail Freebooter without any cost. Unlike Cavern, its banning doesn't hit other tier 2 decks like Eldrazi, Elves or Merfolk which can use the uncounterability but don't bother for the colors.
Other than that, Champion of the Parish and Thalia's Liutenant are the ones giving them the fastest draws and surviving red sweepers. The deck's clock gets much worse without them. Or Aether vial, which has always been on the verge of broken.
Or the best option of them all: don't ban anything, and bring back the right tool for the job. But looks like people would rather have the meta being 40 % humans before that happens.
Pulverize - Great for aggro against artifacts.
Overburden - Fun against humans.
Anyway, Explorations / Masterpieces and the like are crazy scarce, not that they're going to affect the price in the slightest. They will be good for hype and local stories of the guy who opened a Mind over Matter / Rofellos / Any Mox and now rocks in Commander with it*.
*Anyone opening a power 9 would totally get exempted of the ban list, at least for good amount of time.
How's the KCI-Infect matchup? Sounds like Infect has another free time just like against Tron so its position as a meta deck is probably warranted.
There's morbid curiosity to see it in action. Countering an Aether Vial on the draw sounds so good...
Are there Affinity experts here that could tell us whether Stirrings in Affinity is the fad of the month or the real deal? On the surface Affinity is a deck all about the speed and nut multiple permanent openings so it feels out of place and by the midgame it looks like Thoughtcast becomes better. There's three juicy targets in Inkmoth, Cranial Platinig and Ravager that could merit its place, though.
I quite disagree with the bolded. I NEVER want to return to pre-planeswalker world where all you could do as the proactive player was to lay creatures that could be swept by Wrath of God and the answer to "how to play proactively against sweepers" was either "DON'T" or "play burn". Vehicles are fun, it's just that the offenders are way undercosted in their stats and / or crew cost.
I don't play Legacy but given how Deathrite was a favorite card and it was its last bastion it is sad to see it go instead of just banning Delver which would have been very good riddance. That said, I smile when I remember that pro who said Deathrite was good because it gives him access to 4 colours while also giving him a maindeck way to combat such unfair stuff like the Lands deck or Blood Moon.
A little sad to see no changes, although considering the two fires on the other formats while also the fact that M19 did throw some bones promise a brighter future, although meanwhile it is going to funny if Tron is pushed out by the hate that KCI will proceed to ignore while going off.
Ravnica has this Star Wars like cosmopolitan vibe where almost any scene features individuals from different species so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to put a Kor into it and declare Kor are there but were never featured before. It's not like its Lorwyn where even humans are out of the question.
Holder of the ward
WW
Creature - Kithkin cleric
When Holder of the ward enters the battlefield, search your opponent's library for a card and exile it face down.
Sacrifice Holder of the ward: reveal the card exiled with Holder of the ward. Counter target spell with the same name as the revealed card. It's controller shuffles the exiled card into his library.
2/2
This is the the simple version the former is trying to accomplish.
Holder of the ward
WW
Creature - Kithkin cleric
When Holder of the ward enters the battlefield, secretly write a card name and put it face down
Sacrifice Holder of the ward: reveal the chosen name. Counter target spell with the same name as the name chosen.
2/2
The whole point is to restrict the utility of the creature to a single spell while not giving it away so the opponent can't know it in advance. Writing the name down is the quickest choice but it is a logistical nightmare while the first version lacks this problem but it is way more tedious as it needs to search a library for a potential single card. I'd bite the bullet and go for the second version.