I don't know why people think Modern is healthy, unless you are a Pod, Twin or Affinity player enjoying your success. We are only one GP in but I can imagine the next will be look the same, but people will herald it as great , even though you could just as easily cross out Jund and scribble in Pod/Twin.
Just looking at MTGGoldfish results there doesn't seem to be much difference other than Jund not being as plentiful. I thought Zoo and Fae were going to really shake things up? In addition, graveyard strategies becoming better without DRS around. The only deck that seemed to benefit from DRS gone is Storm, and that could be more of curse than a blessing given WotC's attitude towards it.
It is more accurate to say Modern is healthy amongst what is already good and performing well.
WotC agrees with everything that is on the banned list. This thread is for discussing what we think should be unbanned, not what WotC thinks should be unbanned.
But when a few think something is safe the majority understand is on the list, what is the sense of arguing? I think Wotc has much more experience at building a format then any of the player base.
Just because you (you meaning any of us) want something in the format, come up with a decent argument, does not mean Wotc wants to see said card in the format.
Every card that is banned is viewed as too powerful by Wizardfs. Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom and Valakut were all broken in Wizards's eyes. And what is this thread for if not for the discussion of what cards should be banned or unbanned in Modern? If you believe that all discussion is useless because Wizards disagrees with it, you forfeit the right to discuss your opinions too. That includes you wanting to expand the turn 4 rule, ban Abrupt Decay, not have cards reprinted from before Modern, and countless other things that WotC doesn't agree with. Stop being a hypocrite. Either discuss with us or don't. But you can't discuss the banned list and then say that our opinions are invalid because WotC disagrees with them after you have come up with some of the most controversial opinions that WotC most certainly does not agree with on in this series of threads. If our opinions are wrong, yours' are too.
Everyone has been wrong at one time or another. We all have opinions, but that doesnt mean Wotc sees the thinking the same.
I am just going to agree to disagree with this and move on. No sense on beating a dead horse with you.
I don't know why people think Modern is healthy, unless you are a Pod, Twin or Affinity player enjoying your success. We are only one GP in but I can imagine the next will be look the same, but people will herald it as great , even though you could just as easily cross out Jund and scribble in Pod/Twin.
Just looking at MTGGoldfish results there doesn't seem to be much difference other than Jund not being as plentiful. I thought Zoo and Fae were going to really shake things up? In addition, graveyard strategies becoming better without DRS around. The only deck that seemed to benefit from DRS gone is Storm, and that could be more of curse than a blessing given WotC's attitude towards it.
It is more accurate to say Modern is healthy amongst what is already good and performing well.
Every format has its top decks. Affinity, Pod, and Twin are modern's big 3. Modern doesn't have any decks that make every match completely unfair. The argument can be made every deck is weaker against those top decks but that is the same situation in every format. People need to meta game correctly, sideboard correctly, and play a deck targeting the top decks of a format. Jund was a quarter of the meta. 1 deck. But Pod and Twin together make up 28%. Just barely over 1 top deck's previous percent. The meta is fine. Nothing breaks the turn 4 rule. No deck wins every single game. No deck is taking up 25% of the meta. Just because some stuff got banned/unbanned with the last set doesn't mean its going to happen every chance they get. This new meta has barely had a chance to be seen aside from some Dailies, a GP and a PT.
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Active Modern Decks
U Tron GW Bogles RG Loam UR Blue Breach RBU Grixis Goryo BRU Grixis Delver GBR Jund GBW Junk
WotC agrees with everything that is on the banned list. This thread is for discussing what we think should be unbanned, not what WotC thinks should be unbanned.
But when a few think something is safe the majority understand is on the list, what is the sense of arguing? I think Wotc has much more experience at building a format then any of the player base.
Just because you (you meaning any of us) want something in the format, come up with a decent argument, does not mean Wotc wants to see said card in the format.
Every card that is banned is viewed as too powerful by Wizardfs. Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom and Valakut were all broken in Wizards's eyes. And what is this thread for if not for the discussion of what cards should be banned or unbanned in Modern? If you believe that all discussion is useless because Wizards disagrees with it, you forfeit the right to discuss your opinions too. That includes you wanting to expand the turn 4 rule, ban Abrupt Decay, not have cards reprinted from before Modern, and countless other things that WotC doesn't agree with. Stop being a hypocrite. Either discuss with us or don't. But you can't discuss the banned list and then say that our opinions are invalid because WotC disagrees with them after you have come up with some of the most controversial opinions that WotC most certainly does not agree with on in this series of threads. If our opinions are wrong, yours' are too.
Everyone has been wrong at one time or another. We all have opinions, but that doesnt mean Wotc sees the thinking the same.
I am just going to agree to disagree with this and move on. No sense on beating a dead horse with you.
I never said Wizards necessarily agreed with my ideas. But that does not mean that they don't deserve discussing.
The format is a bit too aggressive IMO and would benefit from a Stoneforge Mystic and Jace TMS unban. I wouldn't expect them to accomplish anything too broken given how saturated with Lightning Bolts the format is.
I'm not at all against testing dredge properly in the format, and while we all agree that GGT is a safe unban, would dread return really be that bad with it?
I'm not convinced that dread return is necessarily too powerful for the format, considering some of the other insane combo decks we have running around. That, and dredge is stupidly easy to hate out.
Does someone feel like giving me an explanation or detailed example of why dread return is too powerful instead of just saying it is, for once?
I'm not at all against testing dredge properly in the format, and while we all agree that GGT is a safe unban, would dread return really be that bad with it?
I'm not convinced that dread return is necessarily too powerful for the format, considering some of the other insane combo decks we have running around. That, and dredge is stupidly easy to hate out.
Does someone feel like giving me an explanation or detailed example of why dread return is too powerful instead of just saying it is, for once?
Their reasonings for dread return are in there. The fact is, from what I've gathered from salvation and can't find, testing revealed it could indeed turn three kill rather frequently. It also limits the creatures wizards can print which they really aren't interested in doing right now. I'm sure other members can back me up with actual decklists and such, I just hesitate to post one because I'm no dredge expert.
Does someone feel like giving me an explanation or detailed example of why dread return is too powerful instead of just saying it is, for once?
I was toying around with a Modern DredgeVine deck, where it was super easy to fill the graveyard with multiple Bridge From Belows and many expendable/recurring creatures like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. However, I was lacking a reliable sacrifice outlet for bridge from below. I tried Viscera Seer, but it was too easy for the opponent to get rid of that and too often it just ended up in the grave by dredging. Dread Return is a super reliable sacrifice outlet, because it only needs to be in the graveyard which is easy. Then I sac my expendibles, create an insane zombie army while reviving a huge creature without spending any mana. I think I can do that with Dread Return fast and reliable. It becomes a game you can only win by removing my graveyard and I don't think that most people and WotC want such narrow and fast games.
Thanks for the back up! Yea generally people don't like decks that you auto lose to game 1 because you need specific hate. Really DRS is the only maindeckable hate and they don't want that in the format for a lot of reasons.
I think the following are fine to come off
GGT
AV
green sun zenith
cloudpost
bloodbraid elf
Mental misstep
ponder OR preordain
Stoneforge
and this would be fine if other unbans empowered/created new decks, but not with Bloodbraid as well
Deathrite Shaman
thoughts?
Ignoring the other cards on the list at the moment, mental misstep can't ever come off due to it being an auto four of in almost any deck. As it stands, removal like path and bolt really hold the format together. I understand other colors need a way to interact on the stack, and the experiments thus far like mana tithe and gutteral response haven't been popular, but this isn't the way to do it. It's banned in legacy too for a reason.
I think the following are fine to come off
GGT
AV
green sun zenith
cloudpost
bloodbraid elf
Mental misstep
ponder OR preordain
Stoneforge
and this would be fine if other unbans empowered/created new decks, but not with Bloodbraid as well
Deathrite Shaman
thoughts?
Ignoring the other cards on the list at the moment, mental misstep can't ever come off due to it being an auto four of in almost any deck. As it stands, removal like path and bolt really hold the format together. I understand other colors need a way to interact on the stack, and the experiments thus far like mana tithe and gutteral response haven't been popular, but this isn't the way to do it. It's banned in legacy too for a reason.
I disagree with that. Every color should keep their trademark abilities. Black=discard, Red=Burn, Blue=counterspells etc. The day where were every color is on even footing is the day where the color pie becomes irrelevant.
But you are right about Mental Misstep. That card will probably remain on there forever. It's an innocent looking spell but it has proven to be incredibly warping.
I think the following are fine to come off
GGT
AV
green sun zenith
cloudpost
bloodbraid elf
Mental misstep
ponder OR preordain
Stoneforge
and this would be fine if other unbans empowered/created new decks, but not with Bloodbraid as well
Deathrite Shaman
thoughts?
Ignoring the other cards on the list at the moment, mental misstep can't ever come off due to it being an auto four of in almost any deck. As it stands, removal like path and bolt really hold the format together. I understand other colors need a way to interact on the stack, and the experiments thus far like mana tithe and gutteral response haven't been popular, but this isn't the way to do it. It's banned in legacy too for a reason.
I disagree with that. Every color should keep their trademark abilities. Black=discard, Red=Burn, Blue=counterspells etc. The day where were every color is on even footing is the day where the color pie becomes irrelevant.
But you are right about Mental Misstep. That card will probably remain on there forever. It's an innocent looking spell but it has proven to be incredibly warping.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
I think the following are fine to come off
GGT
AV
green sun zenith
cloudpost
bloodbraid elf
Mental misstep
ponder OR preordain
Stoneforge
and this would be fine if other unbans empowered/created new decks, but not with Bloodbraid as well
Deathrite Shaman
thoughts?
The best deck in Modern would then easily be 12-Post. It was one of the strongest decks in Modern at the start of the format, and that was with much stronger opposing decks (like Storm with all of the rituals and cantrips). SFM, BBE, and AV would all promote midrange or control strategies, which 12-Post is easily able to crush. And what would make it even better is that that deck dodges Mental Misstep better than any other deck that would be viable at that point.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
Modern has 6 major archetypes in it. Of those, 3 of them are almost always blue (Combo, Tempo, and Control). Midrange is often blue as well and Aggro and Ramp sometimes are too. It just seems like blue can do everything in combination with any color other than green. Blue gets everything except for strong removal. Black can do almost everything too to a lesser extent. However, if you combine red, white, or green without blue or black, you are unable to effectively interact with noncreature-based combo decks or hard-to-remove-threats. It just seems like the other colors should have a way to interact with these decks too instead of the default being "always splash for blue or black".
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
Blue's part of the color pie isn't being able to interact with the stack. It's card draw, library manipulation, countering, etc.
Not saying that other colors deserve to counter, they should just be able to interact with the stack. Finn made some awesome examples
Brain Fart
BB
Instant
Target player exiles a non-artifact, non-enchantment card from his/her hand. If that player has no cards in hand, exile all non-artifact, non-enchantment spells from the stack instead. Search those spells' owners libraries for all copies of all spells exiled by Brain Fart and exile them.
--------
Cough Syrup
RR
Instant
Cough Syrup deals 1 damage to target creature or player. If a non-enchantment spell is on the stack, Cough Syrup deals an additional amount of damage to the target equal to that spell's converted mana cost.
--------
Mad Cow Disease
WW
Instant
Shuffle target creature, artifact, planeswalker, or enchantment spell into its owner's library. That player gains 4 life.
---------
WTF
GG
Instant
Reveal your hand. Counter target noncreature spell that has the same converted mana cost as a green permanent you control or a green spell in your hand.
Those would all be sample ways to give other colors to interact with the stack. This is a different argument for another thread, but still giving other colors ways to interact with the stack would be extremely welcomed in every format.
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Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
Modern has 6 major archetypes in it. Of those, 3 of them are almost always blue (Combo, Tempo, and Control). Midrange is often blue as well and Aggro and Ramp sometimes are too. It just seems like blue can do everything in combination with any color other than green. Blue gets everything except for strong removal. Black can do almost everything too to a lesser extent. However, if you combine red, white, or green without blue or black, you are unable to effectively interact with noncreature-based combo decks or hard-to-remove-threats. It just seems like the other colors should have a way to interact with these decks too instead of the default being "always splash for blue or black".
Well white has taxing and hatebears like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and can get rid of pretty much every permanent.
Red was never really about caring about what the opponent is doing, they just want to kill them first with haste creatures, burn etc. and they at least have answers to artifacts.
Green is the "creature angry, creature smash!" color. At least they also can interact with every permanent. Creature removal just requires controlling a big creature yourself.
Blue can draw cards and counter spells but they cant kill something, they can just delay it for a bit. A big weakness if you ask me.
Black can kill creatures, draw cards and discard cards but they often require an additional payment in the form of life, sacrificing something etc. and they cant interact at all with artifacts and enchantments. Until some time ago even planeswalkers were a bane to them but Wizards fixed that one.
I know what you mean about blue showing up often but I find it important to notice that blue needs the others colors too. Black for kill spells, white for wraths, red for kill spells and so on. There are not many mono-blue decks out there. The days of mono-blue counter all your spells is over.
In my opinion that is healthy.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
Modern has 6 major archetypes in it. Of those, 3 of them are almost always blue (Combo, Tempo, and Control). Midrange is often blue as well and Aggro and Ramp sometimes are too. It just seems like blue can do everything in combination with any color other than green. Blue gets everything except for strong removal. Black can do almost everything too to a lesser extent. However, if you combine red, white, or green without blue or black, you are unable to effectively interact with noncreature-based combo decks or hard-to-remove-threats. It just seems like the other colors should have a way to interact with these decks too instead of the default being "always splash for blue or black".
Well white has taxing and hatebears like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and can get rid of pretty much every permanent.
Red was never really about caring about what the opponent is doing, they just want to kill them first with haste creatures, burn etc. and they at least have answers to artifacts.
Green is the "creature angry, creature smash!" color. At least they also can interact with every permanent. Creature removal just requires controlling a big creature yourself.
Blue can draw cards and counter spells but they cant kill something, they can just delay it for a bit. A big weakness if you ask me.
Black can kill creatures, draw cards and discard cards but they often require an additional payment in the form of life, sacrificing something etc. and they cant interact at all with artifacts and enchantments. Until some time ago even planeswalkers were a bane to them but Wizards fixed that one.
I know what you mean about blue showing up often but I find it important to notice that blue needs the others colors too. Black for kill spells, white for wraths, red for kill spells and so on. There are not many mono-blue decks out there. The days of mono-blue counter all your spells is over.
In my opinion that is healthy.
I'd be fine with some monoblue decks. I just wish that blue and black were not the automatic splash colors. This is one of the main reasons why stuff like Naya Midrange has issues.
What really annoys me is that right now the format has problems with not enough Control, Tempo, and Aggro, but aggro has nothing left to unban, the tempo cards (Ancestral Vision, Preordain, Ponder, Green Sun's Zenith) will all get absorbed by Twin or Pod. Control has a ton of stuff that could be unbanned, but it either hurts aggro (Sword of the Meek), would make Control decks spike in price to the point at which they'd be unaffordable to almost everyone (Jace), or would slot into Twin (Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral Vision). There are two things that I have thought of to solve this. One of those is a Chrome Mox unban. Assuming that it isn't unbanned tonight (it won't be), I will test it in June after I don't have to worry about school. The other thing that I have thought of is swap-bans (yes, I am still on this). The 2 that I am thinking of right now are Cloudpost/Emrakul and AV, Preordain, Ponder/Splinter Twin (yes, I can talk about swap-band without pushing a SFM/Batterskull swap). Without Emrakul in the format, Cloudpost seems like it would be safe. The biggest problem with it was the acceleration into an early Emrakul. Without it, it wouldn't be as powerful as it was before and Control would get a small boost. However, the idea that I like more is banning Splinter Twin and unbanning Ponder, Preordain, and AV. AN AV unban would help to push Control decks like Blue Moon and WUR Control while helping Tempo decks like Faeries. Preordain would help blue decks in general, but it would especially help Delver tempo decks. It wouldn't enable turn 3 wins, only make them a little more consistent (but not too consistent). Ponder might be more of a problem for turn 3 wins, but it needs testing. Even if Ponder couldn't be unbanned, trading Splinter Twin for AV and Preordain seems like it would be better for the format.
If a Splinter Twin ban would lead to the blue spells finally coming of the ban list I would be all for it. I mean its not like they would kill the deck completely since there would be still Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. They would just have to adapt.
It still would just make blue decks even stronger, which they already are. There are many decks that run blue successfully, I really don't get why a boost for blue decks is needed with unbans. Blue got so many insane cards last years from which some are banned. I think WotC is doing well in trying to avoid that again. Blue has always been the strongest color in many peoples' eyes, and I think it's very well balanced at this point within Modern. No need to add more powerful cards to it.
And as far as mono colored decks go: Blue has Merfolk. White has Soul Sisters. Green has devotion to Green and elves. Black has 8-rack and devotion t black. Red has Burn.
Merfolk gets the best results at this point for mono-colored decks. Twin is probably the best deck and contains blue. UWR control does really well and contains blue. Maybe we will see decks like Counter-Cat making their return at some point. There are many options for blue decks. So I really don't get why blue cards need to come off the ban list. Blue decks do not need help.
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Just looking at MTGGoldfish results there doesn't seem to be much difference other than Jund not being as plentiful. I thought Zoo and Fae were going to really shake things up? In addition, graveyard strategies becoming better without DRS around. The only deck that seemed to benefit from DRS gone is Storm, and that could be more of curse than a blessing given WotC's attitude towards it.
It is more accurate to say Modern is healthy amongst what is already good and performing well.
Everyone has been wrong at one time or another. We all have opinions, but that doesnt mean Wotc sees the thinking the same.
I am just going to agree to disagree with this and move on. No sense on beating a dead horse with you.
Every format has its top decks. Affinity, Pod, and Twin are modern's big 3. Modern doesn't have any decks that make every match completely unfair. The argument can be made every deck is weaker against those top decks but that is the same situation in every format. People need to meta game correctly, sideboard correctly, and play a deck targeting the top decks of a format. Jund was a quarter of the meta. 1 deck. But Pod and Twin together make up 28%. Just barely over 1 top deck's previous percent. The meta is fine. Nothing breaks the turn 4 rule. No deck wins every single game. No deck is taking up 25% of the meta. Just because some stuff got banned/unbanned with the last set doesn't mean its going to happen every chance they get. This new meta has barely had a chance to be seen aside from some Dailies, a GP and a PT.
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
I never said Wizards necessarily agreed with my ideas. But that does not mean that they don't deserve discussing.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I'm not convinced that dread return is necessarily too powerful for the format, considering some of the other insane combo decks we have running around. That, and dredge is stupidly easy to hate out.
Does someone feel like giving me an explanation or detailed example of why dread return is too powerful instead of just saying it is, for once?
Because if it were legal then I could build toolbox Demon reanimator with a bazillion Shadowborn Apostles :-p
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/144
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28145_The-Modern-Banned-List.html
Their reasonings for dread return are in there. The fact is, from what I've gathered from salvation and can't find, testing revealed it could indeed turn three kill rather frequently. It also limits the creatures wizards can print which they really aren't interested in doing right now. I'm sure other members can back me up with actual decklists and such, I just hesitate to post one because I'm no dredge expert.
Thanks for the back up! Yea generally people don't like decks that you auto lose to game 1 because you need specific hate. Really DRS is the only maindeckable hate and they don't want that in the format for a lot of reasons.
GGT
AV
green sun zenith
cloudpost
bloodbraid elf
Mental misstep
ponder OR preordain
Stoneforge
and this would be fine if other unbans empowered/created new decks, but not with Bloodbraid as well
Deathrite Shaman
thoughts?
Ignoring the other cards on the list at the moment, mental misstep can't ever come off due to it being an auto four of in almost any deck. As it stands, removal like path and bolt really hold the format together. I understand other colors need a way to interact on the stack, and the experiments thus far like mana tithe and gutteral response haven't been popular, but this isn't the way to do it. It's banned in legacy too for a reason.
I disagree with that. Every color should keep their trademark abilities. Black=discard, Red=Burn, Blue=counterspells etc. The day where were every color is on even footing is the day where the color pie becomes irrelevant.
But you are right about Mental Misstep. That card will probably remain on there forever. It's an innocent looking spell but it has proven to be incredibly warping.
If red, white, and green don't have ways to interact with the hand/stack, they end up becoming the weakest colors. Blue is by default the best control, tempo, and combo color. It also is a strong aggro and midrange color. It can do almost everything. other colors should be able to do that too.
The best deck in Modern would then easily be 12-Post. It was one of the strongest decks in Modern at the start of the format, and that was with much stronger opposing decks (like Storm with all of the rituals and cantrips). SFM, BBE, and AV would all promote midrange or control strategies, which 12-Post is easily able to crush. And what would make it even better is that that deck dodges Mental Misstep better than any other deck that would be viable at that point.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Maybe Im just a traditionalist but I can just not agree with that. Every color should have their own unique way of handling things and the game has done that for 20 years now.
Is blue the best color? Maybe but that only really shows in the oldest formats in my opinion. Wizards has tone down blue greatly in recent times.
In Standard and Modern blue is not the be-all and end-all color.
Modern has 6 major archetypes in it. Of those, 3 of them are almost always blue (Combo, Tempo, and Control). Midrange is often blue as well and Aggro and Ramp sometimes are too. It just seems like blue can do everything in combination with any color other than green. Blue gets everything except for strong removal. Black can do almost everything too to a lesser extent. However, if you combine red, white, or green without blue or black, you are unable to effectively interact with noncreature-based combo decks or hard-to-remove-threats. It just seems like the other colors should have a way to interact with these decks too instead of the default being "always splash for blue or black".
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Blue's part of the color pie isn't being able to interact with the stack. It's card draw, library manipulation, countering, etc.
Not saying that other colors deserve to counter, they should just be able to interact with the stack. Finn made some awesome examples
Those would all be sample ways to give other colors to interact with the stack. This is a different argument for another thread, but still giving other colors ways to interact with the stack would be extremely welcomed in every format.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
Giving every color a chance to interact with all the zones in magic is different than destroying the color pie and color identity.
And that's all I'll say on it. This isn't about game design or color philosophy its about the ban list. Of which there will be no changes.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
Well white has taxing and hatebears like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and can get rid of pretty much every permanent.
Red was never really about caring about what the opponent is doing, they just want to kill them first with haste creatures, burn etc. and they at least have answers to artifacts.
Green is the "creature angry, creature smash!" color. At least they also can interact with every permanent. Creature removal just requires controlling a big creature yourself.
Blue can draw cards and counter spells but they cant kill something, they can just delay it for a bit. A big weakness if you ask me.
Black can kill creatures, draw cards and discard cards but they often require an additional payment in the form of life, sacrificing something etc. and they cant interact at all with artifacts and enchantments. Until some time ago even planeswalkers were a bane to them but Wizards fixed that one.
I know what you mean about blue showing up often but I find it important to notice that blue needs the others colors too. Black for kill spells, white for wraths, red for kill spells and so on. There are not many mono-blue decks out there. The days of mono-blue counter all your spells is over.
In my opinion that is healthy.
I'd be fine with some monoblue decks. I just wish that blue and black were not the automatic splash colors. This is one of the main reasons why stuff like Naya Midrange has issues.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
And as far as mono colored decks go: Blue has Merfolk. White has Soul Sisters. Green has devotion to Green and elves. Black has 8-rack and devotion t black. Red has Burn.
Merfolk gets the best results at this point for mono-colored decks. Twin is probably the best deck and contains blue. UWR control does really well and contains blue. Maybe we will see decks like Counter-Cat making their return at some point. There are many options for blue decks. So I really don't get why blue cards need to come off the ban list. Blue decks do not need help.