Spiegal, the homogonizing argument is only made in reference to GSZ/Twin, and while I am saying DRS is comparable to Jace (self contained win condition etc. and (DRS) in combination with Veil stunts any creature deck that plays only 1 Creature a turn. Both are slow win conditions that take a couple turns to get going, and can be removed 'relatively' easily.)
Your focusing on that element i.e Twin and GSZ (and lesser extent Punishing Fire) and ignoring how I am also asking to compare Jace/DRS as part of the 'argument'.
The primary difference is that BGx is 20% (edit: using the list you quoted earlier) of the meta now, without DRS. If something happened over the next year that pushed BGx down to 5-6% of the meta, I would absolutely think something needed to change, either an unban or a ban.
The comparison falls apart because we actually do know what DRS did to the meta, whereas we don't know what Jace would do. The card hasn't actually been in modern, if I'm not mistaken.
Has anyone actually defined what a blue deck is for them? Seems people are crying over no blue decks, but I dont see any clear definitions over what they consider a blue deck. I dont want high level definitions. Get to the nitty gritty.
When I say "reactive blue," it's shorthand for:
-Blue-based control or attrition decks
-Blue-based controlling combo decks
-Blue-based disruptive tempo
Modern would be better off as a format if at least one of those decks was a sustained Tier 1 presence. These are deliberately broad categories because any of them could fill the gaping hole. Unfortunately, all of them (spanning over 50 distinct decks) are bad and have been bad since August 2016.
Ok, and using your definitions (which I assumed were the case), do decks like that exist right now, and which ones are they (I understand they are not Tier 1, but Im talking Tier 3+).
Im not trying to make you work for nothing. Im going somewhere with this.
No additional work. I already have the numbers for an upcoming article. They do exist in Tier 2, Tier 3, and under Tier 3. During the Twin era of 2015, any given month had (on average) 22.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. If you included Twin, it was 27.8 decks. During 2016, any given month had (on average) 24.4 non-Twin blue decks that appeared in some capacity. This is slightly more than the non-Twin blue decks in 2015, but slightly less than the total Twin + non-Twin number of unique decks.
I assumed. My reasoning is I want to actually show the actual blue decks in circulation now. And I want people to point to each one and say what is actually needed to make those decks more competitive while sticking to their shells.
Right now, we have a lot of colorful complaining, and a strict focus on unbans. Maybe unbans and bans are not what WotC wants. Maybe they will slowly introduce better options (like FP) though new sets. It is more beneficial to them, anyways. Unbanning Preordain makes them no money (especially if Modern is thriving). Printing a modern playable blue card in an upcoming set makes them a lot more money, comparatively. So maybe asking for unbans is not the way to go. We are just wasting precious bytes in the MTGS db.
Yes, for sure I (and many others, I think) would prefer counterspell or even the revolt counterspell. Given a choice between jtms, preordain, dig and counterspell, I think the latter would be the best for modern (and a specific answer to your request). However, given wotc's stance on standard and introducing cards to modern specifically through standard, this is unlikely.
We will see in the next few sets, of course. But I would be shocked to see a generic answer on the level of abrupt decay, thoughtseize, or fatal push printed in blue in the next two years.
In Modern, we've just come off two very exciting Grand Prix in Vancouver and Brisbane that saw Death's Shadow rise to the top, but a variety of decks put up strong results. While Modern certainly has its share of powerful cards, the format is in a spot right now that players seem to greatly enjoy.
Thanks Wizards for putting 3 lines. It's better than nothing. But I am really pissed that they wrote NOTHING about the lack of blue reactive decks.
Why there are only blue players who come crying ?
There has never been a top tier white deck and I have never seen a single player crying : "pls wizards white need some love" ...
FWIW, there was a brief period of time when people were advocating for white specifically via a sfm unban. It was maybe a year ago (I don't remember when, but I remember being part of the discussion). Several advocated a sfm unban because white is pretty bad in the format.
In regards to blue, people care more I think for two reasons. 1) Over the past several years wotc has slowly readjusted the color pie, and moved some of blue's primary strength (card advantage) over into green and black. In modern, the two best card advantage spells are green (traverse and stirrings). They have done so without compensating within blue itself to adjust for other colors absorbing some of it's identity (I'm talking perceived identity, not necessarily real identity). So I think blue mages feel somewhat...not betrayed, but a word that conveys a similar emotion with less intensity.
2) Unfair or not, blue has historically been great. Now in magic's premier non-standard format, it isn't just not-great, it is probably bad. It's hard to make the adjustment.
On a practical level, I would like modern to have more color balance. I think there are two easy unbans to move toward that goal. Is it necessary? Of course not, at least not any more than it is necessary that any of the macro archetypes are good. But it would be nice.
What do you guys think, does this announcement signal a bias towards 'no action'? Something else? WotC can't possibly be unaware that Uxx is underrepresented, right? Or do they have stats that indicate it is not?
Yes, absolutely. I doubt they will do anything unless the format gets actively worse. I'm not sure they care about color imbalance, regardless of what they say.
On top of that, I very much doubt they spend much time talking about modern with the current state of standard. We already know they don't test much for the format, and the current crisis just encourages the lack of effort put into modern as a format. Which is fine, modern masters 2017 will keep the format thriving for another year.
At this point I would be surprised if anything is unbanned in modern this year. Wotc is pretty clear about not caring about color balance (in deed, not in word). Even archetype balance is pretty lackluster. But looking at the mtggoldfish meta page, there are a host of decks hovering around 4-9% meta share. The format is undeniably popular, they will sell a ton of mm17 product, and nothing is even close to meeting their stated and implied ban criteria.
What I think will happen is a January unban of Jace and sfm, followed by a spring masters (probably not modern masters, maybe another eternal masters) product headlined by those two cards. They will have had close to a year to plan it out, and it will sell a ton of product.
Right now modern is in a "things are pretty good, but can we make them better?" sort of place. I would be surprised if they even discussed it much at all, compared to standard. Until standard gets sorted out, they may not take any time to think about modern unbans.
Yay splinter twin. felidar guardian and saheeli rai. Yes, it's not as good as actual splinter twin plus deceiver exarch, but it's a turn 4 kill in standard and frontier.
really revolt just needs to be an evergreen mechanic. it is the perfect Avenue to print modern cards through standard as long as they maintain the "have to go through standard" stance. as a mechanic it is close to "this card does something extra in modern anday legacy."
I think Dovin Baan is more playable than he looks. The +1 neuters a lot of creatures in modern, and essentially acts as a removal spell until a wrath comes online, while his -1 is very strong (compare to a sphinx's revelation at X=1). The -7 isn't that great in this format, and I don't think it's a factor in Dovin's playability.
The only thing is I don't think he's better than nahiri or new chandra in jeskai, or new tamiyo in bant (which isn't a thing, I know). Is he good enough for straight uw or esper? Esper especially is struggling, and maybe he could help?
Just curious, what do you guys think the chances are of a Stoneforge Mystic unbanning? I know she's good, but she's no better than Snapcaster Mage, in my opinion. The biggest reason I can think of that they wouldn't is that it'd lower the diversity of modern because every white deck would run her, but that's no different than Goyf, Bob, and Snappy.
I think WOTC, or at least Forsythe, are on record as essentially saying never in modern. I think the quote was "they (SFM and Jace, the Mind Sculptor) have a grave for themselves as far as modern is concerned. They will have their place in legacy." Or something like that.
Ok, I get it now, you never actually used either Azorius or Boros charms before. If you had you would know that the lifelink on azorius was never used, the card had 2 modes, and the bounce was ok but not really worth 3 mana.
That just isn't true. The lifelink mode, while used less often, is sometimes quite powerful. I saw life swings of 10-16 (5-8 damage with lifelink) with aetherling more than once. Ditto with elspeth tokens. But probably my lgs is the only one where that happened.
Hi,
I live in Europe, in Spain and I am going to New York for a couple of weeks soon and want to compare the prices of some cards to see if I can get them cheaper than here. I know how to check card prices in Europe, since we have magiccardmarket to compare, and also the most known stores have their own webpage displaying prices or even have a mkm account. I have found some stores close to the place I am going to stay, but their page does not show singles prices, although they state they sell them. Is there a webpage which shows the actual trend of singles prices in stores in the US?
GB are just the police colors for modern, and that is fine. While abrupt decay is probably my least favorite card ever, I think it is worse if WotC starts banning 1 for 1 removal. It just sets a horrible precedent, one that I would like to avoid.
The banned list is currently fast mana (or ways to cheat mana), card advantage/selection/quality engines, and insane combo/synergy pieces. The card that stands out to me as not being firmly in any of these is deathrite shaman, which is simply really efficient at everything. Not that I advocate unbanning it, I just think it is the odd one out, and because of that has the best chance of being unbanned someday, when people forget what it did to the format.
Basically this banned list makeup encapsulates the current magic design philosophy, which makes sense. They want modern to be...modern magic, just more powerful, I guess. What remains to be seen is where they want the level of each of those categories to be, in the long term.
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The primary difference is that BGx is 20% (edit: using the list you quoted earlier) of the meta now, without DRS. If something happened over the next year that pushed BGx down to 5-6% of the meta, I would absolutely think something needed to change, either an unban or a ban.
The comparison falls apart because we actually do know what DRS did to the meta, whereas we don't know what Jace would do. The card hasn't actually been in modern, if I'm not mistaken.
FWIW I think bbe could be unbanned now.
EDIT: source for Jace never being in modern.
Yes, for sure I (and many others, I think) would prefer counterspell or even the revolt counterspell. Given a choice between jtms, preordain, dig and counterspell, I think the latter would be the best for modern (and a specific answer to your request). However, given wotc's stance on standard and introducing cards to modern specifically through standard, this is unlikely.
We will see in the next few sets, of course. But I would be shocked to see a generic answer on the level of abrupt decay, thoughtseize, or fatal push printed in blue in the next two years.
FWIW, there was a brief period of time when people were advocating for white specifically via a sfm unban. It was maybe a year ago (I don't remember when, but I remember being part of the discussion). Several advocated a sfm unban because white is pretty bad in the format.
In regards to blue, people care more I think for two reasons. 1) Over the past several years wotc has slowly readjusted the color pie, and moved some of blue's primary strength (card advantage) over into green and black. In modern, the two best card advantage spells are green (traverse and stirrings). They have done so without compensating within blue itself to adjust for other colors absorbing some of it's identity (I'm talking perceived identity, not necessarily real identity). So I think blue mages feel somewhat...not betrayed, but a word that conveys a similar emotion with less intensity.
2) Unfair or not, blue has historically been great. Now in magic's premier non-standard format, it isn't just not-great, it is probably bad. It's hard to make the adjustment.
On a practical level, I would like modern to have more color balance. I think there are two easy unbans to move toward that goal. Is it necessary? Of course not, at least not any more than it is necessary that any of the macro archetypes are good. But it would be nice.
Yes, absolutely. I doubt they will do anything unless the format gets actively worse. I'm not sure they care about color imbalance, regardless of what they say.
On top of that, I very much doubt they spend much time talking about modern with the current state of standard. We already know they don't test much for the format, and the current crisis just encourages the lack of effort put into modern as a format. Which is fine, modern masters 2017 will keep the format thriving for another year.
What I think will happen is a January unban of Jace and sfm, followed by a spring masters (probably not modern masters, maybe another eternal masters) product headlined by those two cards. They will have had close to a year to plan it out, and it will sell a ton of product.
The only thing is I don't think he's better than nahiri or new chandra in jeskai, or new tamiyo in bant (which isn't a thing, I know). Is he good enough for straight uw or esper? Esper especially is struggling, and maybe he could help?
I think WOTC, or at least Forsythe, are on record as essentially saying never in modern. I think the quote was "they (SFM and Jace, the Mind Sculptor) have a grave for themselves as far as modern is concerned. They will have their place in legacy." Or something like that.
That just isn't true. The lifelink mode, while used less often, is sometimes quite powerful. I saw life swings of 10-16 (5-8 damage with lifelink) with aetherling more than once. Ditto with elspeth tokens. But probably my lgs is the only one where that happened.
The biggest problem with that is brainstorm. Also swords to plowshares.
A lot of local stores simply use SCG prices (http://www.starcitygames.com). If you are lucky, some of them might use the average price of this site, http://magic.tcgplayer.com/
The banned list is currently fast mana (or ways to cheat mana), card advantage/selection/quality engines, and insane combo/synergy pieces. The card that stands out to me as not being firmly in any of these is deathrite shaman, which is simply really efficient at everything. Not that I advocate unbanning it, I just think it is the odd one out, and because of that has the best chance of being unbanned someday, when people forget what it did to the format.
Basically this banned list makeup encapsulates the current magic design philosophy, which makes sense. They want modern to be...modern magic, just more powerful, I guess. What remains to be seen is where they want the level of each of those categories to be, in the long term.