I think most players were low on hate as I didn't need to face any Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace, I think the deck is quite good G1 vs most of the field
.
in my limited experience post ban, i feel that there are too few leylines back then i only expect it on BGx and mirror matches, BGx is quite tricky for me to predict because some do/some don't play leylines because of bob. actually the most problematic anti graveyard hate i found is grafdigger's cage , relic and spellbomb are both easy to play around but not for cage.
congrats for placing that event and thank you for sharing this report. i've already asked in reddit what i want to know. btw are you also a member of the FB bridgevine facebook group? another player made a good outing playing bridgevine there and he still got the altar mill back-up plan. his card choices particularly street wraith seems interesting.
Thanks! I am not in the FB group but I am in the discord channel, there are many players brewing there.
Now that I am so focused on T2 Hogaak, I think I will be running 18 lands (instead of 17) with many fetches to maximize Bloodghast value, that should enable more hasty Hogaaks with Max Velocity. Since I was not siding Leyline vs Phoenix nor Storm (only vs mirrors, Dredge and Thopter Foundry combos), I think I will be testing a 2-2 split of Surgical Extraction and Ashiok, Dream Render instead. The idea is to make Dredge's Nature's Claim bad while having more versatile hate options, my only concern is that it could be too slow sometimes. I didn't like having 4 slots in my sideboard for just a few matchups, specially when one of them (Dredge) was consistently finding the answer to it in the early game. Being able to stop search effects should also improve my matchup vs Devoted Druid, Amulet and Valakut (although Valakut is already a good matchup). Not sure if I would side it vs Tron as by turn 3 they probably have already searched for everything they need
Round 1 vs UR control with Thing in the Ice: Game 1 I deploy a couple Vengevines and zombies and pressure him enough to force some blocks, and deal with TiTi through Darkblast, they Cryptic tap draw the turn I had lethal, durdle a little bit and flip a 2nd TiTi with double bolt, I cast Hogaak next turn to block and keep pressure with my Vengevines until they die. Game 2 I had a great hand with 2 suppliers+Hogaak+Ghast, T1 supplier mill 3, T2 supplier mill another 3 (1 Max Velocity), cast hogaak leaving only Max Velocity in the graveyard and jump start discarding bloodghast to attack for 9, they T3 Anger removing the suppliers, my T3 is play land return bloodghast, max velocity it and attack for 11
Round 2 vs Humans Game 1 we both fill the board and I have 1 hogaak in play and another in gy so I keep attacking with it every turn and then casting the one in graveyard to block tapping whatever that can't block and force some blocks until I control the board. Game 2 they T1 Cage T2 Auriok Champion T3 Plague Engineer naming zombie, I try to grind it out with Stinkweed Imp and removing creatures with Darkblast but it wasn't enough. Game 3 I deploy a T2 Hogaak + Vengevine and they can't keep up
Round 3 vs Red Phoenix Game 1 opponent puts me low on life while I setup but is then left without cards and I manage to push damage through while keeping blocks to avoid dying. Game 2 my opponent puts me down to 6 and I need a good dredge to go off, I find the win reanimating Hogaak + 2 Vengevine + Max Velocity out of nowhere
Round 4 vs UR Phoenix Game 1 I have a strong opener deploying Hogaak turn 2 and they manage to flip TiTi to save themselves but I recast everything and push damage while keeping Hogaak to block. Game 2 I Thoughtseize their Aria of Flame over Anger of the gods, turn 2 Hogaak and they T3 Aria of Flame but they were left with not much gas in hand, finds a Titi and a couple more spells before dying
Round 5 vs Boros Burn Game 1 I put some pressure with Vengevine and a couple 2/1, they cast Eidolon and don't block me so I just pass the turn to them with a healthier life and they are unable to kill me without dying from their Eidolon, Game 2 I manage to T2 Hogaak again but my life is lower this time, I play around Deflecting Palm by not attacking with Hogaak since it wasn't lethal that turn and opponent deals me 6 EOT and another 6 on their turn to kill me. Game 3 I have another strong opener, my opponent had Path to slow me a turn (I had Feeder to sac Hogaak and recast) and when they were at 11 and I was at 12 I attacked for 19, they had Deflecting Palm on Hogaak but it was lethal anyway and Bolt would leave me at 1 so I manage to take a close win
Round 6 ID vs Affinity
Round 7 Id vs Naban Humans
QF vs Urza's & Sai's Outcome I wish this friend of mine were playing the Thopter Sword combo but they were playing a Paradoxical Outcome grindy brew that happened to play a lot of cheap artifacts including 3 Relic of Progenitus maindeck + Tormod's Crypt and Grafdigger's Cage on the side. I make a mistake by keeping a greedy opener with 1 Overgrown Tomb able to turn 2 Hogaak if I mill him with any of my 2 Suppliers but I only milled 5 lands and another Supplier (d'oh), it didn't matter much as my opponent lead with land, Mox, Relic, Mishra's Bauble so they had active relic from turn 1 and I couldn't find any red source to dig with Looting so they setup while I am basically doing nothing. Game 2 I have a decent opener but their turn 1 involves Grafdigger's Cage + Tormod's Crypt so although I destroyed their Cage with Shenanigans I didn't find any action on my mills and I were not able to do anything before my opponent would take the lead and combo me out casting 3 Paradoxical Outcomes the same turn with both Urza and Sai on the board
I think most players were low on hate as I didn't need to face any Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace, I think the deck is quite good G1 vs most of the field, the matchup that worries me the most G1 is Tron doing T3 Karn into Ensnaring Bridge but I like how it plays vs everything else and the zombie beatdown plan with Cryptbreaker is decent when we are facing hate that we can't deal with right now as it let's us establish board presence and draw cards to find our answers
Really? 4 Surgical Extraction mainboard was becoming common in every deck, not just to stop Hogaak, but because it's a good answer to opposing Surgicals since everyone was running them anyways.
6 was the standard during week 2 of Hogaak, it was creeping up in week 3. And that's in addition to other cards being sideboarded just for it.
The consensus was that the UW list was running the correct amount of hate, not that it wasn't enough
Burn and Hardened Scales played the right amount of hate, 0 main and the have their sideboard ready, no problem there (although I don't see the tutor you mention in the scales list, Recombiner searches for Constructs only)
The GDS list is interesting as I think it's the only I've seen with 4 maindeck cards to deal with graveyard strategies and even has room for 4 Jailers in the side, I think it's the list with most hate I've seen but it's still less than what you stated:
mainboarding 4 pieces of GY hate and having another 6 to 8 in the SB
These sideboards reflect how the deck warped the meta around it and are more than enough to justify the ban, no need to exaggerate, a deck with 10-12 graveyard hate cards is likely not going to succeed as it's diluting it's own gameplan too much, there is a point where going up is actually not worth it and it looks like 6-8 slots total was that point.
And yes, it's possible it may have been less of an issue given a few more weeks... like I said before, this was a ban after 3 weeks which is unheard of, and something I'm not a fan of in general (should give the meta 3 to 6 months to adapt in most cases), but I think this was a perfect storm of a very good deck, little time to innovate (especially publicly), plus an upcoming high profile tournament where they wanted to show diversity, not dominance.
Again, I agree with the ban, I never said they should have given it more time, just that they didn't need to cherrypick data to justify it.
My concern is: if they cherrypick data in an obvious ban like this, how can we trust they won't do the same in future situations where it isn't obvious that a ban is needed?
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
I think it was falling slightly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly meaningful. For starters, the deck hadn't really evolved to deal with any hate yet. Second, it was effectively tier 0 so everyone was gunning for it, and despite that it was still over 50% (even if not over 60% anymore). Third, in order to get it's win rate down slightly, and not even below 50% people were mainboarding 4 pieces of GY hate and having another 6 to 8 in the SB.
That is unhealthy for the meta no matter how you cut it, because it then means every deck is either SB'ing specifically for Hogaak and losing to everything else, or SB'ing for everything else and losing to Hogaak.
It was definitely a very quick ban, I think that's the fastest they've ever taken action on a ban outside of emergency bans. Mental Misstep lasted 3 or 6 months (I don't remember) and Treasure Cruise lasted 3 months. Hogaak lasted 3 weeks. Definitely controversial as to what should be banned, but I think everyone agrees the deck was too good in it's current incarnation.
I agree with the ban, something had to go, I just don't like WotC cherrypicking data to make the ban look more convincing, that's it, they could present all the data they had and nobody would have claimed that the deck was fine. What bothers me is how WotC deliberately decided to show just some of it.
By the way, how do you know its winrate was above 50% vs hate? I couldn't find it in the announcement.
Fighting through 4 maindeck GY hate and another 6 to 8 hate pieces in the sideboard? C'mon, don't inflate the numbers, nobody played so much hate
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
In the case of the Hogaak Bridgevine deck, its initial overall win rate on Magic Online was over 60%.
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
In recent weeks, Hogaak Bridgevine has been the most played Modern deck on Magic Online and has earned over three times as many 5-0 League trophies as the deck with the next most.
So, the most played deck gets the most trophies, 3 times more than the second most played deck. This really doesn't say anything unless you compare how much presence each deck had. If there were 3 Hogaak decks for every second best deck, it means both have the same conversion rate. Why not tell us how its winrate was compared to other decks?
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Yes, even without Force in hand, it's probably right to just play him T3 on the draw, worst case scenario it gets remanded, playing their creature in response is not a big deal, you can just bounce-draw and now they have to kill it before being able to play at instant speed so they are likely to spend a Bolt on that and by then, UW is ahead(although I could see the Twin player tapping a land during UW upkeep to prevent T3feri).
Well, worst-case would be, flash their creature, untap land, Pierce T3feri but that seems unlikely
Tapping out for Teferi, Time Raveler wouldn't actually be that risky. I mean what are the gonna do about him? They are pretty much forced to counter him because otherwise their entire deck falls apart. Neither the Tempo nor the Combo plan is working as long as he is on the battlefield.
Windmill slamming him on Turn 3 leaves basically only three options:
1) They counter him and then follow up with something
2) They let him resolve and spent their next turn(s) somehow getting him of the battlefield. That guy has 5 Loyalty so they lost Tempo and resources while doing that.
3) They do neither of those things and pretty much lose the game
If I am on the play and I have a hand with Teferi and something like a Detention Sphere I would slam him on Turn 3 100% of the time. I would do the same if Im on the draw and and I have Teferi and Force of Negation. The upside of this is sky high while risk isn't.
If UW is on the draw, the Twin player could play Exarch/Pestermite in response, forcing the UW player to bounce it or die to the combo
Once the combo is assembled, Urza generates infinite mana that can be used to activate his "Mind's Desire" ability so some lists are playing stuff that ends the game on the spot like Ghirapur Aether Grid.
Re: Challenge results
As I wrote in the Reddit post, the Challenge results are both laughably bad (32% Hogaak Vine = lulz) and relatively isolated. Did Hogaak have an outrageous debut at this single Challenge? Absolutely, and it would be misleading to deny that. But it's just as misleading to oversell the results of a single Challenge. For one, it's a single datapoint on the debut weekend of a deck. There are so many factors that both artificially increase (e.g. players don't know how to play against it, SB decisions, hype, etc.) and decrease (card availability, untuned decks, pilots don't know tricks with the deck, etc.) prevalence in such a single datapoint. Given these limitations, it's hard to draw a meaningful conclusion. Second, it's not even a major paper event. It's "just" an MTGO Challenge, which we have routinely (and rightfully) questioned as representative of the metagame on any given weekend. Significant paper results or repeat online results are needed to really figure out where the deck stands in the metagame.
Re: ban decisions
Wizards has issued one emergency ban in over a decade (Felidar), which was more of an oversight acknowledgement than a response to a pattern of troubling results. There is no way we see emergency ban action based on a single Challenge. Wizards has repeatedly shown, despite the blaring ban mania in online communities, that they will wait for sustained results before acting on a ban.
I encourage community members to stick to the proven method of ban analysis: waiting for more data and taking a long, conservative view of the format. Recognize the metagame's ability to adapt and acknowledge that most decks have more weaknesses than we think. This method has produced consistent predictions of changes and no changes for years now. Even if Hogaak Vine is ultimately bannable, that does not mean we throw out the proven, conservative method and revert to a ban mania mindframe. If you throw enough darts at a board, eventually you'll get a bullseye even if your technique is horrible. That doesn't mean we look at the bullseye and say "NAILED IT" with all of our bad technique throws. We stick with the technique that works.
I am going to quote ktkenshinx's comment here as I think it will help us get some focus and not deviate from our ban analysis method.
There is a Modern GP next weekend, that will likely be our first large data sample since the release of Modern Horizons, maybe the deck is broken and needs a ban but we currently don't have enough data.
yeah now that we have seen the lists? This is not sufficient hate.
I'm up to 3 Surgical Main, 3 Ravenous, 1 Tormod's Side. Because I'm not willing to pick up Voids, which btw are now $70 cards lol.
If playing UW with 4 RIP and 2 Surgical in the sideboard is not enough, maybe this is a bit too much, don't you think?
UW lost to MonoR Phoenix in the QF though so maybe it would have been able to deal with Hogaak decks (I see this more as UW losing to Burn than to a GY deck, 4 Snapcaster + 2 Surgical Extraction should be enough to avoid Phoenix beats)
The deck is really strong, fast and consistent so that makes it more difficult for other decks to try outspeed it (Infect for instance could be a contender but it's not that much faster and has to avoid all those zombie blockers)
They don't test past standard, that's why the ban list exists, to ban problematic cards. Don't know why people are so afraid of bans. Bans are also what mantains the format fresh and evolving. Don't be afraid of bans. I guess I'm so used to "bans" aka buffs and nerfs in other online games that it's just a natural process to me.
Half the bans wizards makes don't even outright kill the deck, just downgrade them from tier0 to tier1-3.
If cards were free, bans and unbans could be made with much more ease and less risk (JTMS comes to mind, unbanning it was dangerous in part because of its price and the economic implications, it had to come with a reprint to alleviate the increase in demand)
In terms of gameplay, you are correct, bans are made to fix something problematic and improve the game experience so being able to fix those quickly should be positive. But when your playerbase has already invested money to get their cards, making these changes becomes a challenge since you now have to keep in mind other things besides how good the format will look afterwards, otherwise you could take away motivation from some players (even if their cards didn't plummet in price, having to move to another deck is not easy in paper and usually takes some time) resulting in less people attending tournaments, even if gameplay had improved. That's why WotC has to always be cautious with B&R announcements affecting paper magic.
Arena could be the environment where WotC is quicker in terms of bans and unbans since the economic and logistic repercusions are diminished or almost gone. I know, crafting new cards requires game resources but you can get them for free in a reasonable amount of time so players don't suffer too much if a card gets banned like Nexus of Fate did.
Phoenix, Humans, Spirits, Hardened Scales, GDS, BGx, Vannifar, Infect, Affinity and Jeskai Control.
I also liked playing vs Mardu Pyromancer but that deck doesn't see much play anymore.
London mulligan will come to paper magic on July 5.
The next B&R update will be on July 8.
Since there is little to no time in between those two dates and WotC considered the format at the MC healthy, it will most likely be a "no changes" announcement
EDIT: At least from the ban side of things, maybe they decide it's time to unban something but I think it's very unlikely with so many changes being processed
Why is Force of White so goddamn awful. White gets screwed in a cycle again. Like at worst I thought we get tokens or life gain and we ended up with something worse. I mean I guess you can dodge Anger of Gods but control mostly drops Terminus or 4 CMC Wrath
"Scale Up" looks really dangerous in Infect. It cannot stack with other copies of itself when applied to the same creature, but it notably sets base power and toughness (to a cool 6/4) for only G at sorcery speed without making its target lose abilities.
It is indeed scary in Infect, it enables more T2 kills.
Maybe they want Infect to be the "unfair" deck of choice for the format so midrange strategies that rely on traditional forms of interaction (discard, counter and removal) have a better chance?
Thanks! I am not in the FB group but I am in the discord channel, there are many players brewing there.
Now that I am so focused on T2 Hogaak, I think I will be running 18 lands (instead of 17) with many fetches to maximize Bloodghast value, that should enable more hasty Hogaaks with Max Velocity. Since I was not siding Leyline vs Phoenix nor Storm (only vs mirrors, Dredge and Thopter Foundry combos), I think I will be testing a 2-2 split of Surgical Extraction and Ashiok, Dream Render instead. The idea is to make Dredge's Nature's Claim bad while having more versatile hate options, my only concern is that it could be too slow sometimes. I didn't like having 4 slots in my sideboard for just a few matchups, specially when one of them (Dredge) was consistently finding the answer to it in the early game. Being able to stop search effects should also improve my matchup vs Devoted Druid, Amulet and Valakut (although Valakut is already a good matchup). Not sure if I would side it vs Tron as by turn 3 they probably have already searched for everything they need
4 Faithless Looting
2 Darkblast
2 Maximize Velocity
Creatures (35)
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Cryptbreaker
4 Bloodghast
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Vengevine
4 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thoughtseize
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Shenanigans
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Fatal Push
Round 1 vs UR control with Thing in the Ice: Game 1 I deploy a couple Vengevines and zombies and pressure him enough to force some blocks, and deal with TiTi through Darkblast, they Cryptic tap draw the turn I had lethal, durdle a little bit and flip a 2nd TiTi with double bolt, I cast Hogaak next turn to block and keep pressure with my Vengevines until they die. Game 2 I had a great hand with 2 suppliers+Hogaak+Ghast, T1 supplier mill 3, T2 supplier mill another 3 (1 Max Velocity), cast hogaak leaving only Max Velocity in the graveyard and jump start discarding bloodghast to attack for 9, they T3 Anger removing the suppliers, my T3 is play land return bloodghast, max velocity it and attack for 11
Round 2 vs Humans Game 1 we both fill the board and I have 1 hogaak in play and another in gy so I keep attacking with it every turn and then casting the one in graveyard to block tapping whatever that can't block and force some blocks until I control the board. Game 2 they T1 Cage T2 Auriok Champion T3 Plague Engineer naming zombie, I try to grind it out with Stinkweed Imp and removing creatures with Darkblast but it wasn't enough. Game 3 I deploy a T2 Hogaak + Vengevine and they can't keep up
Round 3 vs Red Phoenix Game 1 opponent puts me low on life while I setup but is then left without cards and I manage to push damage through while keeping blocks to avoid dying. Game 2 my opponent puts me down to 6 and I need a good dredge to go off, I find the win reanimating Hogaak + 2 Vengevine + Max Velocity out of nowhere
Round 4 vs UR Phoenix Game 1 I have a strong opener deploying Hogaak turn 2 and they manage to flip TiTi to save themselves but I recast everything and push damage while keeping Hogaak to block. Game 2 I Thoughtseize their Aria of Flame over Anger of the gods, turn 2 Hogaak and they T3 Aria of Flame but they were left with not much gas in hand, finds a Titi and a couple more spells before dying
Round 5 vs Boros Burn Game 1 I put some pressure with Vengevine and a couple 2/1, they cast Eidolon and don't block me so I just pass the turn to them with a healthier life and they are unable to kill me without dying from their Eidolon, Game 2 I manage to T2 Hogaak again but my life is lower this time, I play around Deflecting Palm by not attacking with Hogaak since it wasn't lethal that turn and opponent deals me 6 EOT and another 6 on their turn to kill me. Game 3 I have another strong opener, my opponent had Path to slow me a turn (I had Feeder to sac Hogaak and recast) and when they were at 11 and I was at 12 I attacked for 19, they had Deflecting Palm on Hogaak but it was lethal anyway and Bolt would leave me at 1 so I manage to take a close win
Round 6 ID vs Affinity
Round 7 Id vs Naban Humans
QF vs Urza's & Sai's Outcome I wish this friend of mine were playing the Thopter Sword combo but they were playing a Paradoxical Outcome grindy brew that happened to play a lot of cheap artifacts including 3 Relic of Progenitus maindeck + Tormod's Crypt and Grafdigger's Cage on the side. I make a mistake by keeping a greedy opener with 1 Overgrown Tomb able to turn 2 Hogaak if I mill him with any of my 2 Suppliers but I only milled 5 lands and another Supplier (d'oh), it didn't matter much as my opponent lead with land, Mox, Relic, Mishra's Bauble so they had active relic from turn 1 and I couldn't find any red source to dig with Looting so they setup while I am basically doing nothing. Game 2 I have a decent opener but their turn 1 involves Grafdigger's Cage + Tormod's Crypt so although I destroyed their Cage with Shenanigans I didn't find any action on my mills and I were not able to do anything before my opponent would take the lead and combo me out casting 3 Paradoxical Outcomes the same turn with both Urza and Sai on the board
I think most players were low on hate as I didn't need to face any Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace, I think the deck is quite good G1 vs most of the field, the matchup that worries me the most G1 is Tron doing T3 Karn into Ensnaring Bridge but I like how it plays vs everything else and the zombie beatdown plan with Cryptbreaker is decent when we are facing hate that we can't deal with right now as it let's us establish board presence and draw cards to find our answers
The consensus was that the UW list was running the correct amount of hate, not that it wasn't enough
Burn and Hardened Scales played the right amount of hate, 0 main and the have their sideboard ready, no problem there (although I don't see the tutor you mention in the scales list, Recombiner searches for Constructs only)
The GDS list is interesting as I think it's the only I've seen with 4 maindeck cards to deal with graveyard strategies and even has room for 4 Jailers in the side, I think it's the list with most hate I've seen but it's still less than what you stated:
These sideboards reflect how the deck warped the meta around it and are more than enough to justify the ban, no need to exaggerate, a deck with 10-12 graveyard hate cards is likely not going to succeed as it's diluting it's own gameplan too much, there is a point where going up is actually not worth it and it looks like 6-8 slots total was that point.
Again, I agree with the ban, I never said they should have given it more time, just that they didn't need to cherrypick data to justify it.
My concern is: if they cherrypick data in an obvious ban like this, how can we trust they won't do the same in future situations where it isn't obvious that a ban is needed?
I agree with the ban, something had to go, I just don't like WotC cherrypicking data to make the ban look more convincing, that's it, they could present all the data they had and nobody would have claimed that the deck was fine. What bothers me is how WotC deliberately decided to show just some of it.
By the way, how do you know its winrate was above 50% vs hate? I couldn't find it in the announcement.
Fighting through 4 maindeck GY hate and another 6 to 8 hate pieces in the sideboard? C'mon, don't inflate the numbers, nobody played so much hate
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
So, the most played deck gets the most trophies, 3 times more than the second most played deck. This really doesn't say anything unless you compare how much presence each deck had. If there were 3 Hogaak decks for every second best deck, it means both have the same conversion rate. Why not tell us how its winrate was compared to other decks?
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Well, worst-case would be, flash their creature, untap land, Pierce T3feri but that seems unlikely
If UW is on the draw, the Twin player could play Exarch/Pestermite in response, forcing the UW player to bounce it or die to the combo
I am going to quote ktkenshinx's comment here as I think it will help us get some focus and not deviate from our ban analysis method.
There is a Modern GP next weekend, that will likely be our first large data sample since the release of Modern Horizons, maybe the deck is broken and needs a ban but we currently don't have enough data.
If playing UW with 4 RIP and 2 Surgical in the sideboard is not enough, maybe this is a bit too much, don't you think?
UW lost to MonoR Phoenix in the QF though so maybe it would have been able to deal with Hogaak decks (I see this more as UW losing to Burn than to a GY deck, 4 Snapcaster + 2 Surgical Extraction should be enough to avoid Phoenix beats)
The deck is really strong, fast and consistent so that makes it more difficult for other decks to try outspeed it (Infect for instance could be a contender but it's not that much faster and has to avoid all those zombie blockers)
If cards were free, bans and unbans could be made with much more ease and less risk (JTMS comes to mind, unbanning it was dangerous in part because of its price and the economic implications, it had to come with a reprint to alleviate the increase in demand)
In terms of gameplay, you are correct, bans are made to fix something problematic and improve the game experience so being able to fix those quickly should be positive. But when your playerbase has already invested money to get their cards, making these changes becomes a challenge since you now have to keep in mind other things besides how good the format will look afterwards, otherwise you could take away motivation from some players (even if their cards didn't plummet in price, having to move to another deck is not easy in paper and usually takes some time) resulting in less people attending tournaments, even if gameplay had improved. That's why WotC has to always be cautious with B&R announcements affecting paper magic.
Arena could be the environment where WotC is quicker in terms of bans and unbans since the economic and logistic repercusions are diminished or almost gone. I know, crafting new cards requires game resources but you can get them for free in a reasonable amount of time so players don't suffer too much if a card gets banned like Nexus of Fate did.
I also liked playing vs Mardu Pyromancer but that deck doesn't see much play anymore.
The next B&R update will be on July 8.
Since there is little to no time in between those two dates and WotC considered the format at the MC healthy, it will most likely be a "no changes" announcement
EDIT: At least from the ban side of things, maybe they decide it's time to unban something but I think it's very unlikely with so many changes being processed
It's nice with Squadron Hawk though
It is indeed scary in Infect, it enables more T2 kills.
Maybe they want Infect to be the "unfair" deck of choice for the format so midrange strategies that rely on traditional forms of interaction (discard, counter and removal) have a better chance?